WHAT REALLY
LED TO
INDIAN FREEDOM
Rajnikant Puranik
“Far from claiming any credit for achievements of 1942 [Quit India], both
Gandhi and the Congress offered apology and explanation for the
‘madness’ which seized the people participating in it.”{AD1}
—Noted historian Dr RC Majumdar
“The claim that Quit India led to freedom is
a state sanctioned hoax.”{AD1}
—Author Anuj Dhar
“I see it as clearly as I see my finger: British are leaving not because of any
strength on our part but because of historical conditions and for many other
reasons.”{Gill/24}
—Mahatma Gandhi
What Really Led
to
Indian Freedom
by
Rajnikant Puranik
Categories: Non-fiction, History
First Edition, August 2018
Copyright © 2018 Rajnikant Puranik
Available at Amazon and Pothi.com
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PREFACE
“I see it as clearly as I see my finger: British are leaving not because of any
strength on our part but because of historical conditions and for many other
reasons.”{Gill/24}
—Mahatma Gandhi
This book comprehensively covers all the factors that really led to the
freedom of India from the British.
Chapter-1 covers prominent international timelines, particularly that of
World War-I and World War-II, that had major bearings on India’s freedom.
Chapter-2, a mega chapter, chronologically covers all timelines, events,
and developments relevant to the Indian Freedom Movements—
revolutionary, constitutional and Gandhian— right since 1600 CE.
Chapter-3 covers the three major, once-in-a-decade Gandhian
Movements—all of which, unfortunately, were major failures.
Chapter-4 covers Netaji Subhas Bose, his INA, and the army mutinies
that hugely contributed to winning freedom for India.
Chapter-5 evaluates the Gandhian Movement, and compares it with the
other freedom movements—revolutionary and constitutional.
Chapter-6, the last chapter, analyses in detail ‘What Really Led to
Freedom’.
Ambitious coverage of this book would have required over a thousand
pages to do full justice to the topics. However, this project (book) is
restricted to presenting a comprehensive yet compressed view of the
relevant factors, events and timelines. It is a summarised work deliberately
limited to as few pages as possible.
—Rajnikant Puranik
www.rkpbooks.com
A NOTE ON CITATIONS & BIBLIOGRAPHY
Citations are given as super-scripts in the text, such as {Azad/128}.
Citation Syntax & Examples:
{Source-Abbreviation/Page-Number}
e.g. {Azad/128} = Azad, Page 128
{Source-Abbreviation/Volume-Number/Page-Number}
e.g. {CWMG/V-58/221} = CWMG, Volume-58, Page 221
{Source-Abbreviation} … for URLs (articles on the web), and for digital
books (including Kindle-Books), that are searchable, where location or
page-number may not be given.
e.g. {VPM2}, {URL15}
{Source-Abbreviation/Location-Number}… for Kindle Books
e.g. {VPM2}, {VPM2/L-2901}
Example from Bibliography Table at the end of this Book
Azad B Maulana Abul Kalam Azad—India Wins
Freedom. Orient Longman. New Delhi. 2004
CWMG D, W Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi. Vol. 1 to
98.
http://gandhiserve.org/e/cwmg/cwmg.htm
The second column above gives the nature of the source: B=paper Book,
D=Digital Book/eBook other than Kindle, K=Kindle eBook, U=URL of
Document/Article on Web, W=Website, Y=YouTube
To the fond memory of my late parents
Shrimati Shakuntala and Shri Laxminarayan Puranik
Thanks to
Devbala Puranik, Manasi and Manini
DETAILED TABLE OF CONTENTS
{ 1 } Relevant International Timelines
Timelines of Prominent International Events
WW-I Chronology & India’s Role
WW-II Chronology & India’s Role
India’s Role in WW-II
WW-II as a Military Training Opportunity for Indians
WW-II Chronology
{ 2 } Indian Freedom Struggle Timelines
1600–1770
1772–1880
1880–1897
1900–1910
1911–1915
1915: The Grand Ghadar Mutiny
1916–1920
1916 : The Lucknow Pact [P]
1915: All India Home Rule League
1917 : Champaran & Gandhi
1917–18: Sardar Patel’s Successful Agitations
1918–19: Mont-Ford Reforms & the GoI Act [P]
1919: Rowlatt Acts & Satyagraha
Jallianwala Bagh Massacre 1919
1920s: Kisan Movement in UP
1920 : Chamber of Princes
Nagpur Congress Session, Dec-1920
1920–30
1920–22: Khilafat & Non-Cooperation Movement (KNCM)
Aug-Sep 1921 : Moplah Anti-Hindu Attacks
Jan-1923: Swaraj Party
1923: Jabalpur & Nagpur Satyagraha
Sep-1923: Patel’s Successful Borsad Satyagraha
9-11 September 1924 : Kohat Anti-Hindu Attacks
1924-27: Patel’s Commendable Work for Ahmedabad
Municipality
1927: Patel’s Unforgettable Work during Ahmedabad Floods
1928: Patel’s Bardoli Satyagraha 1928
Feb-1928 : Simon Commission
Aug-1928: Motilal Nehru Report
1929–30: Nehru’s Unjust Anointment as Congress President
26 January 1930 : Congress Call for “Purna Swaraj”
1928–31 : Lahore Conspiracy Case, etc.
1930–34
1930: Dandi March & Salt Satyagraha
1930: Qissa Khwani Bazaar Massacre & Garhwali
1930–31: First Round Table Conference (RTC-1)
1931: Gandhi-Irwin Pact
Mar-1931: Sardar as Congress President
Sep–Dec 1931: Second Round Table Conference (RTC-2)
1932: Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM), Phase-II
Aug–1932: The Communal Award
Aug–Sep 1932: The Communal Award & Poona Pact
1932: Third Round Table Conference (RTC-3)
1932–33: Name ‘Pakistan’ & Rahmat Ali [P]
1935–39
Government of India (GoI) Act 1935
1934-37: Elections
Jan-1939: Gandhi vs. Subhas: Presidential Election
1939–43
October 1939 : Anti-Hindu Riots in Sindh [P]
WW-II: British Declaration of War, Sep-1939
Nov-1939: Resignation of Congress Ministries
After Hitler’s Blitzkrieg : Oct,1939–Jun,1940
Rajaji’s Proposal of July 1940
Oct-1940: Selective Individual Disobedience
Pearl Harbor, Dec 1941 & its Aftermath
1940 : Udham Singh Avenges Jallianwala Massacre
March 1940 : League’s Lahore Resolution
1940–46: Congress Descent & League Ascendency
1940-42: Netaji Subhas Escapes
March-April 1942 : Cripps Mission
Apr-1942: CR’s Formula on Pakistan
August-1942: Quit India Movement [P]
1943–46
1943–44: British Gift—The Great Bengal Famine
May 1944 Onwards: Gandhi’s Major Come-Down Moves
May 1944 Onwards: Side-lining of Gandhi
25 June 1945 : Shimla Conference
End 1945—1946 : Elections
April 1946 : Gandhi-Nehru Hijack Presidential Elections
March-June 1946 : Cabinet Mission
Aug-1946: Muslim League’s Direct Action (Riots)
2-Sep-1946 : Interim Government
Oct–1946: Noakhali Anti-Hindu Killings
Oct-1946: Nehru’s NWFP Visit—a Blunder
Dec-1946 Onwards: Developments on Groupings
Dec–1946 : Constituent Assembly
1947
Feb–1947: Attlee’s “Quit India” Deadline Declaration
8 March 1947: Patel & Partition, the Lesser Evil
22 March 1947: Mountbatten Arrives
Gandhi’s 1-Apr-1947 Offer for Jinnah
May-1947 Onwards: Freedom & Partition
{ 3 } Three Major Gandhian Movements
Khilafat & Non-Cooperation Movement (KNCM)
Khilafat (Caliphate) & Khalif (Caliph)
Defeat of the Ottomans in WW-I & its Consequences
Khilafat & Other Muslim Countries
Khilafat & Indian Muslims
Gandhi & Khilafat
Approval of Non-Cooperation at Congress Sessions in 1920
KNCM Gathers Steam
Gandhi’s Inexplicable Calling-off of KNCM!
Reactions to Gandhi’s Withdrawal of KNCM
Sacrifice Down the Drain
Caliphate, Atatürk & Gandhi’s Indefensible Stand!
Ambedkar’s Views
Miserable Failure of Gandhi’s First Mass Agitation
Prince of Wales’s Visit & Lost Opportunity
Second Phase of Gandhian Struggle: 1930-1931
Dandi March & Salt Satyagraha 1930
Gandhi-Irwin Pact 1931: a Failure
Condemning Bhagat Singh & Colleagues to Death
Irresponsible Part of the Gandhian Non-Cooperation Call
Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM), Phase-II
Quit India Movement 1942
Call for “Quit India” & its Background
Poor Preparation, Arrests & Flop-Show
Quit India Momentum
Varied Views on “Quit India”
Release from Jails
Failure of “Quit India”
{ 4 } Bose(s), INA & the Army Mutiny
Rash Behari Bose
Subhas Chandra Bose
Indian National Army (INA)
INA Trials, Nov 1945—May 1946
Mutiny in the Indian Army, Feb 1946
{ 5 } Gandhian vs. Other Freedom Movements
Mass Freedom Movement before Gandhi
Stellar Role of Revolutionaries & Netaji
Effectiveness of the Constitutional Methods
Adverse Effect of Gandhian Intervention
Comparison: How & When Other Countries Got Freedom
Gandhi’s “My Way or the Highway”
Extracts from ‘Guilty Men of India’s Partition’
Nature of the Gandhian Freedom Movement
Have-all-the-time-in-the-world-to-get-freedom Mindset
Ad Hoc & Unplanned
Freedom Movements that didn’t Demand Freedom
Non-Violence Nonsense of “No Alternative”
{ 6 } What Really Led to Freedom
Was Freedom thanks to Gandhi & Congress?
What They Said
Freedom: the Real Reasons
1) WW-II and its Consequence
2) Netaji Bose, INA and Army Mutinies
3) Pressure from the US
4) Gandhi & the Congress?
5) The British Sought Freedom from India!?
Bibliography
{ 1 }
RELEVANT INTERNATIONAL TIMELINES
TIMELINES OF PROMINENT INTERNATIONAL EVENTS
1915–17: Armenian Genocide by the Ottomans
Khalifa and the Ottoman Empire perpetrated the dastardly Armenian
Genocide, also known as the Armenian Holocaust, during 1915-17
involving the systematic extermination of about 15 lakhs (1.5 million) of its
minority Armenian subjects inside their historic homeland, which lies
within the present-day Republic of Turkey. The genocide commenced with
Ottoman authorities rounding up and deporting around 250 Armenian
intellectuals and community leaders from Constantinople to Ankara, and
eventually murdering most of them. The genocide then expanded to the
wholesale killing of the able-bodied male population; subjection of army
conscripts to forced labour; and deportation of women, children, the elderly
and infirm—deprived of food and water, and subjected to rape robbery and
murder—on death marches to the Syrian desert.{AG1} Many women were
raped, stripped naked, and crucified—in testimony, there are photographs of
rows of naked women nailed to cross!{AG2}
It was the first modern genocide, and precursor of Hitler’s Holocaust—
indeed Hitler was inspired from, and took lessons from the same. Hitler was
reported to have remarked in the context of his order to exterminate the
Polish race: “I have issued the command, and I'll have anybody who utters
but one word of criticism executed by a firing squad… that our war aim
does not consist in reaching certain lines, but in the physical destruction of
the enemy. Accordingly, I have placed my death-head formations in
readiness for the present only in the East with orders to them to send to
death mercilessly and without compassion, men, women, and children of
Polish derivation and language. Only thus shall we gain the living space
(Lebensraum) which we need. Who, after all, speaks today of the
annihilation of the Armenians?”
Despite enough and mounting evidence, Gandhi had refused to
acknowledge the Armenian genocide, saying “I distrust the Armenian
case.” What can be said of leaders who choose to deliberately ignore even
the current history and facts, stick to their concocted reality and airy
notions, and fail to fashion their national policies based on ground reality.
Gandhi had made a bizarre statement in support of the Khilafat and
Ottoman responsible for the many wrong-doings including the Armenian
Holocaust: “I would gladly ask for postponement of Swaraj if thereby we
could advance the interests of Khilafat.”{BK2/81}
How could the “Apostle of Non-Violence” lead a movement to save a
regime that had perpetrated genocide? Was Gandhi totally ignorant of the
what was going on elsewhere in the world? How could a person unaware of
important currents in contemporary history be ever a good leader? Or, was
he doing what he did aware of the background? If so, he was totally
unprincipled!
Modern day ISIS, the perpetrator of indescribable crimes on the Yezidis
and Kurds and others, is headed by a Khalifa, and their aim is to establish
Khilafat all over the world! Gandhi was therefore supporting those whose
modern incarnation is ISIS!
7 November 1917 : “October” Revolution
The Russian Communist or Bolshevik or October Revolution (25
October 1917 by the Julian or Old Style calendar, hence called October
Revolution).
18 July 1925
Adolf Hitler's autobiographical manifesto Mein Kampf published.
29 October 1929
Start of the Great Depression, with the Wall Street Crash.
1932-33 : Soviet Famine
Start of the Soviet famine caused by the collectivization of agriculture as
part of the First Five-Year Plan. Nehru did not learn from the failed Soviet
Model, and pushed India into the abyss of socialism after independence.
WW-I CHRONOLOGY & INDIA’S ROLE
28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918
Start and end of World War-I (WW-I) between the Central Powers
(Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire) and the
Allied Powers or the Allies (the British Empire, the US, France, Belgium,
Italy, Russia, Romania, Serbia, and others).
18 January 1919 to 21 July 1919
Start of the conference on the Treaty of Versailles (WW-I) and its final
ratification.
WW-I & India’s Massive Contribution
Over a million (1.34 million to be precise) Indian troops served overseas
during the First World War, of whom about 62,000 died and another 67,000
were wounded. About 3500 Indian doctors and surgeons, and 165 vets,
were also deployed abroad. Over 1,72,000 elephants, horses, camels, and
goats were shipped overseas from India, along with over 3,00,000 tons of
fodder and supplies. The Indian Army fought in Europe, South-East Asia,
East Africa, Egypt, and nearly 700,000 Indian soldiers served in
Mesopotamia against the Ottoman Empire, also fighting in Palestine. When
with mounting officer casualties the British found their replacement
difficult (officers used to be all British), they were left with no alternative
but to take in officer cadets of Indian descent beginning 1919. India
provided more (1,78,000 more) soldiers for the war than the combined
contribution of all other colonies.
The India Gate in New Delhi was built in 1931 to commemorate the
Indian soldiers who gave their lives fighting in the First World War.
Despite chronic impoverishment, thanks to the British, Indians
contributed 100 million pounds as gift, 700 million dollars as their
subscription to war loans, in addition to sending various products valued to
the tune of 1.25 billion dollars, leading to heavy shortages in India, and
increase in prices.
The Congress Party, promising full cooperation with the Raj, offered in
December 1914 “its profound devotion… its unswerving allegiance to the
British connection, its firm resolve to stand by the Empire, at all hazards
and at all costs” {MM/145}.
When Gandhi visited London in August 1917, he urged the Indians
there to “think imperially”, and conspicuously demonstrated his loyalty to
the Raj. The ‘Apostle of Non-violence’ and the sworn pacifist actively
supported the British war efforts, and helped recruit Indian soldiers (he did
a stint as a recruiting sergeant for a regiment). Gandhi wrote a letter dates
30 April 1918 to the British authorities: “I would like to do something which
Lord Chelmsford would consider to be real war work. I have an idea that, if
I became your recruiting agent-in-chief, I might rain men on you. Pardon
me for the impertinence.”{CWMG/Vol-17/12} During his recruitment campaign in
Kheda he proclaimed in a speech that the British “love justice; they have
shielded men against oppression.” In his enthusiasm, he wrote to the
Viceroy on 29 April 1918, “I would make India offer all her able-bodied
sons as a sacrifice to the empire at this critical moment…”{CWMG/Vol-17/8}
Gandhi even urged Jinnah to help in the recruitment drive, as it would
encourage Indian nationalism{PF/26}! Gandhi did all the above willingly and
unconditionally perhaps in the vain hope that the British would reciprocate
after the war with grant of dominion status and self-government, similar to
Canada or Australia. The British did nothing of the sort. It exposed
Gandhi’s lack of political skill in extracting anything tangible from the
British in return for the precious services rendered, and the tremendous
sacrifices of the Indian soldiers.
Field-Marshal Sir Claude Auchinleck had commented that the British
“couldn’t have come through both wars [WW-1, WW-II] if they hadn’t had
the Indian Army.”{URL9}{IDR} The India Gate in New Delhi was built in 1931
to commemorate the Indian soldiers who gave their lives fighting in the
First World War.
In sharp contrast to Gandhi, Tilak had opposed extending unconditional
support to the British for their war efforts. Tilak, the wise realist, had
insisted upon an agreed quid pro quo with the British for helping them, and
he was proved right. Annie Besant of the ‘Home Rule League’ had
similarly pleaded that only a hard-pressed Britain could be made to yield.
But, Gandhi had told her: “Mrs Besant, you are distrustful of the British; I
am not, and I will not help in any agitation against them during the
war.”{Nan/151}
The British contemptuously threw water on all the fond hopes of
Gandhi, and of freedom and swaraj after the war.
WW-II CHRONOLOGY & INDIA’S ROLE
INDIA’S ROLE IN WW-II
At the height of the World War II, more than 2.5 million Indian troops
were fighting Axis forces around the globe. India’s contribution was not
just soldiers and manpower, but also financial and industrial on a large
scale, and provision of armaments and logistics. India also provided the
base for American operations in support of China in the China–Burma–
India region. Indian army fought with distinction throughout the world,
including in Europe, North Africa, South Asia, and South-East Asia. Indian
army helped liberate Singapore and Hong Kong after the Japanese
surrender in August 1945. Over 87,000 Indian soldiers died in the war.
The British Field Marshal Sir Claude Auchinleck, Commander-in-Chief
of the Indian Army asserted that the British “couldn't have come through
both the wars [WW-I and WW-II] if they hadn't had the Indian Army.”
WW-II AS A MILITARY TRAINING OPPORTUNITY FOR INDIANS
Gandhi, Nehru, and the Congress, wedded to their pointless and self-
defeating non-violence creed, didn’t have the vision to ensure India was
well-equipped militarily to protect itself after independence, and take care
of all its external security needs. They, therefore, never bothered to look at
WW-II as an opportunity for India to get a well-trained and well-
experienced army. Their approach to the whole question verged on the
irresponsible. But, not so the wiser Muslim leadership, who made sure
enough Muslims were inducted into the army. However, there were non-
Congress leaders like Veer Savarkar who knew what India needed upon
independence.
After the Muslim League’s Pakistan Resolution of 1940 Savarkar could
foresee the problems ahead for Hindus in India, and wanted Hindus to be
militarily well-equipped. Therefore, rather than the ‘Quit India 1942’,
Savarkar gave a call to the Hindus to take advantage of the opportunity of
getting militarily trained by joining the army in the British war effort in
WW-II.
Fortunately, a very large number of Hindus responded to Savarkar’s call,
and joined the British army—finally making it Hindu-majority from its
earlier position of Muslim-majority. That helped tremendously after
partition and independence, providing a large army to India, the Muslims in
the army having mostly opted for Pakistan. Unlike Gandhi and Nehru,
Savarkar knew what a country of the size of India needed to defend itself.
Dr Ziauddin Ahmed, the then Vice-Chancellor of Aligarh Muslim
University (AMU), had indeed raised an alarm on the increasing number of
Hindus enlisting in the armed forces, thereby reducing the proportion of
Muslims.
But for Savarkar’s whirlwind recruitment drive during WW-II, Pakistan,
after partition, would have had 60–70% of the soldiers, enough to
overwhelm India in the border areas in a conflict—this debt to Savarkar is
sadly unacknowledged. While Gandhi advocated and promoted
feminization of both men and politics, Savarkar sought militarization of
Hindus in view of the serious challenges ahead.
WW-II CHRONOLOGY
This is being given as India’s ultimate freedom was intimately related to
WW-II and its fallout.
1933 Jan 30 Adolf Hitler, Nazi leader, appointed Chancellor of Germany by
President Paul von Hindenburg.
1933 Oct 17 Albert Einstein settled as a refugee in the US, after arriving from
Germany.
1936 Nov 25 Anti-Comintern Pact was signed between Japan and Germany, as per
which if either of the parties were to be attacked by the Soviet Union,
the other too would go to war with the Soviet Union.
1938 Mar 13 Austria annexed by Germany.
1938 Sep 30 To appease Hitler, the Munich Agreement was signed by Germany,
France, the UK, and Italy allowing Germany to annex the Czechoslovak
Sudetenland area, in exchange for peace.
1939 Mar 15 Germany occupied Czech Republic in violation of the Munich
Agreement.
1939 Aug 2
The Einstein-Szilárd letter is sent to the US President Franklin
Roosevelt warning that Germany might develop atomic bombs. This
letter eventually resulted in the Manhattan Project.
1939 Aug 23 Soviet Union and Germany signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, aka the
Nazi-Soviet Pact, or the German–Soviet Non-aggression Pact, with
secret provisions for the division of Eastern Europe: joint occupation of
Poland, and Soviet occupation of the Baltic States, Finland and
Bessarabia.
1939 Sep 1 Germany invaded Poland. Start of WW-II.
1939 Sep 3 Great Britain and France declared war on Germany.
1939 Sep 3 Viceroy Linlithgow announces that India, along with Britain, had joined
the WW-II.
The Congress resented not being consulted in the matter. The Congress
put forth conditions to the Raj for its support in WW-II. The Raj treated
the conditions of the Congress as blackmail, and refusing to agree to
them, offered minor concessions.
The Muslim League whole-heartedly supported the Raj, and gained
favour and ascendency over the Congress.
1939 Sep 17 Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east.
1939
Sep 27-29
Soviet Union and Germany divided Poland among them.
1940 Jun 28 Soviet Union forced Romania to cede the eastern province.
1940
Jun–Aug
Soviet Union occupied the Baltic States annexing them as Soviet
Republics.
1940
Jul–Oct
Battle of Britain (Germany-UK air war): Nazi Germany defeated!
1939 Nov
–1940 Mar
Soviet Union invaded Finland, initiating the so-called Winter War.
1940 Apr-Jun Germany invaded Denmark and Norway.
1940 May Evacuation of Allied troops from the beaches of Dunkirk, as the
Germans menacingly advanced into France.
1940
May–Jun
Germany attacked and occupied Luxembourg on May 14, Belgium on
May 28, and France on June 22.
1940 Sep 13 Italians invaded British-controlled Egypt from Italian-controlled Libya.
1940 Sep 27 Germany, Italy, and Japan signed the Tripartite Pact.
1940 Oct 28 Italy invaded Greece from Albania.
1940 Nov Hungary (Nov 20), Romania (Nov 22), and Slovakia (Nov 23) joined the
Axis Powers.
1941 Jan 19 Released after a 7-day hunger strike, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s
house was put under CID-surveillance. However, in a daredevil act,
Bose managed to escaped on 19 January 1941 along with his nephew
Sisir Bose. Remaining incognito, he reached Germany via Afghanistan,
Russia and Italy. The feat required tremendous guts, intelligence,
cunning, and risk-taking ability. But, that was Bose, a leader like no
other in India.
1941 Mar 1 Bulgaria joined the Axis Powers.
1941 Apr 10 Independent State of Croatia that included Bosnia-Herzegovina
recognized by Germany and Italy. Croatia joined the Axis powers on 15
June 1941.
1941
Apr-Jun
Germany, Italy, Hungary, and Bulgaria invaded and dismembered
Yugoslavia.
1941
Jun-Dec
Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union on 22 Jun. The Germans
overran the Baltic States and, joined by the Finns, laid siege to
Leningrad (St. Petersburg) by September. They drove on to Moscow by
October. German and Romanian troops captured Kiev (Kyiv) in
September, and Rostov on the Don River in November. A Soviet
counter-offensive drove away the Germans from the Moscow suburbs
on 6 Dec 1941.
1941 Dec 7 The Japanese Navy carried out a surprise attack against the US naval
base at the Pearl Harbor situated in the US territory of Hawaii at
7.48am Hawaiian time. It was a massive attack in two waves involving
353 Japanese fighters, bombers, and torpedo planes launched from 6
aircraft carriers causing enormous loss to the US Navy: 4 of its
battleships were sunk, while the remaining 4 were extensively damaged;
additionally 1 minelayer, 1 anti-aircraft training ship, 3 cruisers, and 3
destroyers were badly hit, and 188 aircrafts were destroyed. 2403
Americans were killed, while 1178 were wounded.
Both the scale and the unexpectedness of the unprovoked attack
profoundly shocked the Americans. The attack happened without a
declaration of war by Japan or without explicit warning.
Pearl Harbor effectively turned the European war into a global war.
1941 Dec 8 The Pearl Harbor attack led to the US entry into WW-II. The US
declared war on Japan.
1941 Dec 11 The Axis Powers declared war on the US.
1941 Dec
–1942 Apr
Japanese troops landed in the Philippines, French Indochina (Vietnam,
Laos, Cambodia), and British Singapore, and by April 1942 they came
under Japanese occupation.
British strongholds in South East Asia began to fall into Japanese hands
one by one. The security of the Indian sub-continent was threatened.
1941 Dec 23 Taking cognizance of the changed world situation in the wake of the
Pearl Harbor, the CWC meeting at Bardoli in Gujarat recognised India
could not be defended non-violently against a Japanese invasion. (—A
profound realisation! As if against an invader other than Japan, quixotic
non-violent means would have worked!)
At the persuasion of Rajaji, subject to the declaration of freedom for
India, the CWC offered cooperation with the Allies.
1941 Dec 23 The Wake Island, then under the US, fell to the Japanese.
1941 Dec 27 The Philippines, then under the US, fell to the Japanese.
1942 Jan 14 Japanese captured Malaysia, then under the British, taking 50,000 Allied
soldiers as prisoners of war.
Japanese captured parts of Indonesia.
1942 Feb 15 Japanese captured the British stronghold of Singapore—aka the
‘Gibraltar of the East’—taking 85,000 Allied soldiers (British, Indian,
and Australian) as prisoners of war. PM Winston Churchill called the
ignominious fall of Singapore as the "worst disaster" and "largest
capitulation" in the British military history.
1942 Jan At the AICC meeting in Wardha, the Bardoli proposal of 23 Dec 1941
was ratified in the hope that the British authorities would do something
positive for India.
1942 Mar 7 Burma (Myanmar) was the next target of the Japanese blitzkrieg.
Rangoon fell on 7 March 1942. With that, the attack on India seemed
imminent.
Looking to the critical situation, the US President Roosevelt and the
Chinese Generalissimo Chiang urged the British PM Churchill to make
a reconciliatory move towards the Congress to obtain India’s full co-
operation in WW-II. Churchill was reluctant, but once Rangoon fell, he
was forced to make a move. He announced a mission to Delhi under the
Leader of the House, Sir Stafford Cripps.
1942 Mar Over Radio Berlin, Indians heard Netaji Bose for the first time after
about a year in March 1942 confirming his taking of help from the Axis
Powers for the Indian independence.
1942 Apr 12 With the Indian public, particularly the youth, gaga over the daring of
Subhas, Nehru, who used to show himself off as a combative youthful
leader, felt jealous, and tried to demonstrate his “principled” anti-fascist
position by claiming on 12 April 1942 that he would even fight Subhas
on the battlefield. People would have wondered why Nehru never
showed that dare against the real enemy, the British.
1941 May
–1945 May
Anglo-American bombings reduced urban Germany to rubble.
1942
Jun-Sep
Germany/Axis partners fought their way into Stalingrad (Volgograd) on
the Volga River, and penetrated deep into the Caucasus after securing
the Crimean Peninsula.
1942 Jul With the British having been routed in SE-Asia, the Japanese almost
next door in Rangoon, and Axis powers doing relatively well, Gandhi
misread that the tide was in favour of the Axis Powers. Getting
irrelevant, not having led a mass movement for a decade, and with
leaders like Netaji Bose getting popular, Gandhi insisted in CWC at
Wardha for “Quit India”.
1942
Aug-Nov
US troops halted the Japanese island-hopping advance towards Australia
at the Solomon Islands.
1942 Oct British troops defeated the Germans and Italians in Egypt.
1942 Nov
—1943 Feb
Soviet troops counter-attacked in Stalingrad trapping the German Sixth
Army in the city. Forbidden by Hitler to retreat or try to break out of the
Soviet ring, the survivors of the Sixth Army surrendered.
1943 May 13 Axis forces in Tunisia surrendered to the Allies, ending the North
African campaign.
1943 July 5 The Germans launched a massive tank offensive near Kursk in the
Soviet Union. The Soviets blunted the attack, and went on the offensive.
1943 July 25 The Fascist Grand Council deposed Benito Mussolini.
1943 Jul 10 Anglo-American troops landed in Sicily, and occupied it by August.
1944 Jun 4 Allied troops liberated Rome.
1944 Jun 6 British–US troops landed on the Normandy beaches of France, opening
a “Second Front” against the Germans.
1944 Jun 22 The Soviets launched a massive offensive in Belarus, destroying the
German Army Group Center and driving fast westward.
1944 Jul 25 Anglo-American forces broke out of the Normandy beachhead and raced
eastward towards Paris.
1944 Dec France, Belgium, Netherlands liberated, despite German’s Battle of
Bulge offensive against Belgium.
1945 Apr 16 Soviets launched their final offensive, encircling Berlin.
1945 Apr 30 Hitler committed suicide.
1945 May 7 Germany surrendered to the western Allies. WW-II practically ends.
1945 May 9 Germany surrendered to the Soviets.
1945 May Allied troops conquered Okinawa, the last island stop before the
Japanese islands.
1945 Aug 6 US dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima.
1945 Aug 9 US dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki.
1945 Aug 14 Unconditional surrender by Japan.
1945 Sep 2 Formal surrender by Japan; and end of WW-II.
{ 2 }
INDIAN FREEDOM STRUGGLE TIMELINES
1600–1770
31 December 1600, 1615: EIC
The East India Company (EIC) was formed on 31 December 1600. It
got exclusive trading rights with India. Under William Hawkins, it set up a
trading post in Surat, and a factory in Masulipatanam. Sir Thomas Roe
presented his credentials as ambassador to Emperor Jehangir. EIC acquired
its first territory in Mumbai in 1615.
1751 : Robert Clive seizes Arcot
Clive, then 26, seized Arcot in Tamil Nadu.
23 June 1757 : Battle of Plassey Heralds Company Rule
In the battle at Plassey near Murshidabad, Nawab Siraj-ud-daulah of
Bengal was defeated by Robert Clive and the British army, thanks to the
treachery of his commander-in-chief Mir Jafar, and the mechanics of the
wealthy merchants like Jagat Seth and Umichand. It resulted in the start of
the East India Company Rule, and heralded the British Raj in India. For
details, please see under “Robert Clive” above.
1769–70 : Great Bengal Famine
Bengal had been one of the richest regions in the world. Writes
Madhusree Mukerjee in ‘Churchill's Secret War : The British Empire and
the Ravaging of India during World War II’: “...But before 1757, when
General Robert Clive founded the British Empire by conquering Bengal, it
was one of the richest parts of the world: ‘the paradise of the earth,’ as
Clive himself described it...”
Wrote French physician and traveller Francois Bernier: “…In a word,
Bengal abounds with every necessary of life; and it is this abundance that
has induced so many Portuguese, half-casts, and other Christians, driven
from their different settlements by the Dutch, to seek an asylum in this
fertile kingdom. ...the rich exuberance of the country, together with the
beauty and amiable disposition of the native women, has given rise to a
proverb in common among the Portuguese, English and Dutch—the
Kingdom of Bengale has a hundred gates to open for entrance, but not one
for departure.” That is, outsiders were keen to come in, but having come,
none ever wanted to depart, so prosperous was Bengal!
The British so changed the land and revenue laws and so wrecked the
economy and engaged in loot that within mere 12 years of the their rule,
Bengal faced severe famine of 1769—something which had never occurred
earlier! Not until the famine broke out did people in Britain realise the
reason for the extraordinary profits of the East India Co. About 10 million
perished in the famine—roughly one-third of the population of Bengal.
The agricultural economy was wrecked because the English extracted
usurious rents and revenues—even in the years of failure of crops, forcing
farmers to sell their belongings and even children! Agriculturists and their
families were tortured to make them somehow cough up the revenue. Those
who could not pay were forced out of their lands.
1772–1880
1772
Britain establishes its capital in Calcutta.
1773
Warren Hastings became the first Governor General. EIC got monopoly
on production and sale of opium in Bengal.
Sanyasi Revolt, 1773
Fakirs and sanyasis from Rangpur to Dhaka (both now in Bangladesh)
led by Manju Shah Fakir—and joined by farmers, evicted landlords, and
disbanded soldiers—revolted against the British government’s restrictions
on visit to holy places. They even overcame a company of sepoys, and
killed its commander. Overrunning several districts, they set up a parallel
government. Governor General Warren Hastings launched operations
against them. However, their resistance continued up to 1800.
1783–84 : Chalisa Famine
After having plundered Bengal, and to make up for its lost revenues as a
consequence of that plunder, the British under the first Governor-General
Warren Hastings then subjugated the nearby prosperous kingdom of Oudh,
and began extracting punishing revenues from there. Thanks to the same,
like it happened in Bengal in 1769-70, Oudh then faced famine in 1783-84,
along with Delhi, Eastern Punjab, and Rajputana! An estimated 11 million
perished in the famine. And people talk of prosperity under the British!!
1791-92 : Famine in Madras Presidency
The famine affecting Deccan, Hyderabad, South Maratha, Gujarat, and
Marwar resulted in the death of about 10 million.
1799
Tipu Sultan was defeated and killed at Srirangapatanam by the British.
1817-18
The Third Anglo-Maratha War (1817–1818) between the British East
India Company (EIC) and the Maratha Empire led to the decisive defeat of
the latter, and the break-up of the Maratha Empire. Peshwa Baji Rao II was
captured and shifted to a estate at Bithur on the banks of Ganga, near
Kanpur.
1828
Raja Rammohan Roy founded the Adi Brahmo Samaj for socio-
religious reforms in Calcutta.
1835
Macaulay’s agenda of western education began to be implemented in
India. The status of official language of the government and the courts was
accorded to English.
1837-38 : Agra Famine
The famine affected Agra Province, Delhi, and Hissar, and resulted in
the death of about 8 lakh people.
1853
First railway between Bombay and Thane.
Santhal Rebellion, 1855
Santhal rebellion, led by Sindhu and Kanhu, erupted in 1855 against the
oppression of police and land revenue officials, and atrocities of landlords
and moneylenders. The British pacified the Santhals by creating a separate
district of Santhal Parganas.
1857-58: First War of Independence Heralds British Raj
The First War of Independence was ruthlessly crushed. It ended the
nominal Moghul rule. British Crown took over India from the British East
India Company (BEIC). Beginning of the Raj.
1859-60 : Indigo Revolt
In Bengal and Bihar, the European indigo planters used to force the
local peasants to grow indigo on their lands, or part of their lands, instead of
the more lucrative and useful crops like rice. The planters used to intimidate
the peasants into accepting advance sums, and enter into fraudulent
contracts with them. The intimidation involved kidnappings, illegal
confinements, flogging, attacks on women and children, seizure of cattle,
burning and demolition of houses and destruction of crops.
Led by Digambar and Bishnu Biswas of Nadia district, the peasants
revolted in 1859 and resolved not to grow indigo under duress, and resisted
the bullying techniques of the planters, who used to be backed by the police
and the courts, and employed lathiyals (retainers).
1860-61 : Agra Famine
The famine affected Agra Province, Delhi, and Hissar, coming under
East Rajputana, and resulted in the death of about 2 million people.
1865-67: Odisha Famine
The famine affected Odisha, Bihar, and parts of Madras, and claimed
lives of over 15 lakh.
1868-70: Rajputana Famine
The famine claimed lives of over 1.5 million.
1874-75: Deccan Riots
Deccan peasant riots erupted in 1874 in the areas of and around Pune
and Ahmednagar to protest high land revenue, forcing of land-revenue
payments even during bad seasons, confiscation of land, cattle, jewellery,
and other property by moneylenders to recover their usurious loans. Apart
from targeted violence, it involved social boycott of moneylenders. It later
got support from the Poona Sarvajanik Sabha led by Justice Ranade. As a
consequence, the government was forced to pass the Agriculturists Relief
Act in 1879.
1876: Queen Victoria
Queen Victoria was proclaimed the Empress of India.
1876-78: The Great Famine
The Great Famine of 1876–78 affected south and southwestern India,
including Madras, Mysore, Hyderabad, and Bombay, and claimed the lives
of about 5.5 million. Like the Great Bengal Famine of 1943–44, it was
man-made, rather British-made—Lord Lytton, then Viceroy, having
exported record food-grains.
1880–1897
1882 (1875): Vande Mataram
1875 was the year ‘Vande Mataram’, which is now the national song,
was written by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee. It was later included by him in
his novel ‘Anandmath’ published in 1882.
1883 : Revolutionary Phadke martyred
Revolutionary Vasudev Balwant Phadke was captured in a temple after a
fierce fight with the Police on 20 July 1879 while on his way to Pandharpur.
Realising he was too dangerous an individual to be allowed to remain in
India, the British transported him for life to a prison in Aden. He was
fettered and placed in solitary confinement. He, however, managed to
escape by taking the door off from its hinges on 13 February 1883. But, he
was recaptured. Phadke went on a hunger strike to death to protest his ill-
treatment; and on 17 February 1883 he was martyred while on a hunger
strike.
1883: Separate Muslim Electorates—Aga Khan [P]
In 1883, Aga Khan put forth the idea of reserving a certain number of
seats in elections for Muslims; and that the Muslim electorate should vote
only for them. Thus, the divisive proposal of a separate electorate for
Muslims emerged that laid the foundations of partition and Pakistan.
28 December 1885 : Foundation of INC
Please check details on the Indian National Congress (INC) under
‘Political Parties & Groups’ above.
1886: Muhammadan Educational Conference [P]
Muhammadan Educational Conference was founded in 1886 by Syed
Ahmad Khan at the Aligarh Muslim University. It sowed the seeds of
Muslim separatism.
1896-97 Famine
1896-97 famine was almost pan-India hitting United Provinces, Central
Provinces, Bombay Presidency, Madras Presidency, Bengal, Hyderabad,
and Rajputana. Its toll was about 5 million.
1899-1900 Famine
1899-1900 famine struck Bombay, Central Provinces, Hyderabad,
Rajputana, and Gujarat, and resulted in a million deaths.
Act of 1892
The British silently, stealthily, and mischievously brought in the Act of
1892 providing for the principle of separate representation for Muslims in
the political constitution of India. It is this act that laid the foundation of
Pakistan. The wise and the cunning British wanted to make sure the Hindus
and the Muslims never ever came together, like they (Hindus–Muslims) had
done during the First Indian War of Independence of 1857.
22 June 1897 : Chapekar Brothers’ Revenge
WC Rand, responsible for excesses during the plague in Pune, and his
military escort Lt Ayerst, were shot dead by Chapekar Brothers—Damodar
Hari, Balkrishna Hari, and Vasudeo Hari Chapekar—who hailed from
Chinchwad, Pune. All the three brothers were found guilty and hanged. For
details, please see “Chapekar Brothers” above, under “Notable
Personalities/Revolutionaries”.
1897 : Tilak Sentenced
Lokmanya Tilak took up the issue of the British highhandedness in Pune
during the bubonic plague of 1896-97, and published articles in his paper
‘Kesari’—quoting the Bhagavad Gita, he stated that no blame could be
attached to anyone who avenged an oppressor without any thought of
reward. In the context of the revenge against the British by Chapekar
Brothers, Tilak was charged with incitement to murder and sentenced to 18
months imprisonment. Out of prison, he was revered as a martyr and a
national hero.
1899-1900: Birsa Munda’s Tribal Revolt/Ulgulan
For details, please check for ‘Birsa Munda’ above, under “Notable
Personalities/Revolutionaries”.
1900–1910
24-Mar-1902: Anushilan Samiti
Anushilan Samiti was established in Calcutta. It propounded
revolutionary violence for ending the British Raj in India. For details,
please check “Anushilan Samiti” above, under “Notable
Personalities/Revolutionaries Groups”.
18-Feb-1905 : Shyamji’s IHRS
Shyamji Krishna Varma founded the ‘Indian Home Rule Society’
(IHRS) in London. Its written constitution stated its aims to be to “secure
Home Rule for India, and to carry on a genuine Indian propaganda in this
country [Britain] by all practicable means”. It was also intended to rival the
loyalists in the British Committee of the Indian National Congress. He was
supported by Bhikaji Cama, Dadabhai Naoroji and SR Rana.
1-Jul-1905 : Shyamji’s India House
Shyamji Krishna Varma founded the ‘India House’ in London as a
hostel for Indian students, since most faced racist discrimination when
seeking accommodation. India House soon became a hub of Indian
nationalists and revolutionaries, the notables being Madan Lal Dhingra,
Madame Bhikaji Rustom Cama, Lala Har Dayal, and Veer Savarkar. For
details, please check “India House” above, under “Notable
Personalities/Revolutionaries Groups”.
16-Oct-1905: Bengal Partition
Partition of Bengal into largely Muslim East and predominantly Hindu
West was announced in July 1905, and effected on 16 October 1905, under
Viceroy Lord Curzon on the excuse of facilitating better administration, the
real purpose being to “divide and rule”—drive a wedge between the Hindus
and Muslims—the two new provinces were (1)Bengal, comprising West
Bengal, Bihar and Orissa, and (2)East Bengal plus Assam.
What the British desired soon happened, rather, they encouraged and
facilitated it: national Muslim communal organisation, All India Muslim
League, was formed in 1906.
Rabindranath Tagore spoke out against the partition, and even led mass
protests. The positive side of the partition was that it gave a major fillip to
the revolutionary movement in Bengal and elsewhere.
1905 onwards : Swadeshi Movement
Vandemataram Movement, also called the Swadeshi Movement to
boycott British manufactured goods, was started in 1905 for Bengal’s re-
unification. A large number of young leaders in Bengal took up the task of
educating people with the Swadeshi spirit.
In 1905, Aurobindo Ghosh wrote ‘Vawani Mandir’ containing, inter
alia, the plans and programmes of the Revolutionary Terrorist groups.
Among the major revolutionary groups were the Abhinav Bharat (HQ at
Nasik, and led by Veer Savarkar), the Anushilan Samiti (based in Dacca and
led by Pulin Das), the Jugantar group (led by Jatindranath Mukherji), and
the group led by Rash Behari Bose and Sachindranath Sanyal.
Dec-1906: AIML
‘All-India Muslim League’ (AIML) was formed in December 1906 at a
major conference of 3000 delegates in Dhaka. It was fuelled by the Bengal
partition. Political formations to counter the growing nationalism and the
Congress were being actively encouraged by the British Raj.
1907: Shyamji Shifts to Paris
Facing prosecution in London, Shyamji Krishna Varma shifted to Paris.
Many top French politicians supported him. Shyamji's work in Paris helped
gain support for Indian independence from European countries.
1907: Radicals vs. Moderates in the Congress
In the 1907 Annual Session of the Congress Party at Surat the party split
into the Radicals Faction (Garam Dal), led by Lal-Bal-Pal (Lala Lajpat Rai
of Punjab, Bal Gangadhar Tilak of Maharashtra, and Bipin Chandra Pal of
Bengal), and the Moderate Faction (Naram Dal) led by Gopal Krishna
Gokhale (mentor of Gandhi) of Maharashtra. Nationalists like Aurobindo
Ghose and Chidambaram Pillai supported Tilak. To further their objectives,
the Moderates followed 3Ps—Petitions, Prayers, and Protests—without
much effect or success. Impatient with the tardy pace, the Radicals
advocated radical methods, something the Moderates were not comfortable
with. The Radicals wanted agitations, strikes and boycotts, and not just 3
Ps, to force the issues. In later years, Gokhale had brought in Gandhi to
strengthen the position of the Moderates. As expected, the British put their
full weight behind the Moderates, and began to suppress the Radicals—for
example, newspapers of the Radicals, including that of Tilak, were
suppressed, and Tilak was packed off to Mandalay (in Myanmar/Burma)
jail for 6 years.
30-Apr-1908 : Khudiram Bose & Chaki throw Bombs
In Muzzafarpur, Bengali youths Khudiram Bose and Prafulla Chaki
threw a bomb on a carriage of Chief Presidency Magistrate Douglas
Kingsford of Calcutta. Unfortunately, two women traveling in it got killed.
Chaki committed suicide when caught. Bose was hanged.
Revolutionary Khudiram Bose was hanged by the British at Kolkata on
11 August 1908. He was only 18 years, 8 months and 8 days old! Amrit
Bazar Patrika reported: “Khudiram's execution took place at 6 a.m. this
morning. He walked to the gallows firmly and cheerfully and even smiled
when the cap was drawn over his head.” Kazi Nazrul Islam wrote a poem to
honour him.
1908 : Tilak Jailed
Through his paper ‘Kesari’, Tilak defended the revolutionaries
Khudiram Bose and Prafulla Chaki, and called for immediate Swaraj or
self-rule. The Government charged him with sedition. The Indian Judge
Dinshaw Davar, in a shameless demonstration of his loyalty to the enslavers
of India, passed needless strictures against Tilak, and sentenced him to an
overlong six years (1908-14) in jail in Mandalay, Burma. Tilak commented
on his sentence: “In spite of the verdict of the Jury, I maintain that I am
innocent. There are higher powers that rule the destiny of men and nations
and it may be the will of providence that the cause which I represent may
prosper more by my suffering than my remaining free.” These wordings are
now inscribed on the marble tablet just outside the grand, wood-panelled
Central Court. Incidentally, Jinnah was Tilak’s lawyer. Although Jinnah lost
the case, he successfully defended Tilak in 1916 when Tilak was charged
with sedition.
While in the prison Tilak wrote the ‘Gita Rahasya’. Sale proceeds from
that hugely popular book were donated for the Indian Independence
movement.
Life in Mandalay prison severely affected Tilak’s health.
1909: Morley-Minto Reforms—The Indian Councils Act
The Act of 1909, aka Morley-Minto Reforms, while introducing a
positive measure of providing for election of Indians to the various
legislative councils, both at the central and at the provincial level, in India
for the first time, also introduced a negative measure of the communal
electorates—conceding the Muslim demand for separate electorates, thus
laying the foundation of Hindu-Muslim disunity, and the ultimate Partition
and Pakistan. The Act was actually a conspiracy to bring the Muslims
closer to the British, and widen the gulf further between the Hindus and
Muslims. Lord John Morley was then the Secretary of State for India, and
Lord Minto-II was the Viceroy of India (during 1905-10).
Besides providing for the discriminatory and communal provision of
separate electorates for the Muslims, and for their representation
disproportionately higher than their population; the Morley-Minto Reforms
of 1909 also allowed a Muslim to be a voter if he paid tax on an annual
income of just Rs 3,000, compared to a Hindu who had to have an income
of Rs 3,00,000. Also, in the graduate category of voter, while a Hindu had
to be a graduate of 30 years’ standing, a Muslim needed to be so for only 3
years.{Akb/70}
Already in 1909, prior to the Act, the Muslims formed 23% of the
electors for the district boards, even though their population was only 14%
of the total. Hindu and Muslim members in the District Boards were
respectively 445 and 189 (28%); and in Municipal Boards respectively 562
and 310 (32%). Military had disproportionately high number of Muslims at
63,500 (35%) as against 116,500 Hindus. Thanks to the above 1909 Act, the
Muslim representation from UP in the Imperial Council was the same as
that for Hindus, even though the Muslims constituted only 14% of the
population. In Bombay, a Hindu or a Parsi could not vote in the Provincial
Legislative Council no matter how rich he was, but a Muslim with an
annual income of £135 could do so.{Mak/24-25}
It was the formation of the All India Muslim League (AIML) in 1906,
coupled with the subsequent Morley-Minto reforms of 1909 granting
Muslims a separate electorate and disproportionate representation, that
triggered the formation of Hindu Mahasabha (initially, Punjab Hindu Sabha
in 1909) led by Lala Lajpat Rai.
Notably, Gopal Krishna Gokhale helped shape the Morley-Minto
Reforms—he was specially invited to London to meet the Secretary of State
Lord John Morley for the purpose. He served in the Imperial Legislative
Council after 1909. In being generous to the Muslims, Gokhale was driven
by the general, liberal nature and culture of the Hindus; but the subsequent
developments made him feel cheated.
Jinnah, who was then a secular, was not enthused with the Morley-
Minto Reforms that provided for separate Muslim electorates, and
commented that the separate electorates were “a poisonous dose to divide
the nation against itself”.{Sar/78}
Even John Morley was of the opinion that any religious register, whether
Muslim, Catholic, or Calvinist, was dangerously subversive to the
egalitarian foundation of a modern secular nation.{Wolp/30}
Jinnah had seconded a resolution at the Allahabad Congress of 1910 that
“strongly deprecates the expansion or application of the principle of
separate Communal Electorates to Municipalities, District Boards, or other
Local Bodies.”{Wolp/31}
Wrote Mahommedali Currim Chagla :
“…Lord Morley was the first to use the expression ‘rally the
minorities’ that latter became notorious, and the only hope that the
British had of continuing to govern this country was by adopting the
old policy which empires in the past had always pursued—‘Divide
et Impera’. I think one of the biggest blows that was dealt to the
national unity came when separate electorates were created by the
British. It was a Machiavellian design to put Indian citizens in
different compartments. I am convinced that if the basis of elections
had been joint electorates, there would never have been a demand
for separation or partition. If Hindus had to seek the suffrage of
Muslims and Muslims in their turn had to seek the suffrage of
Hindus, fanaticism would have been at a discount and communal
fanatics of either community would never have been elected to the
legislature.”{MCC/76}
The Morley-Minto Reforms had also provided for participation of
Indians in the British India’s powerful executive councils. Satyendra Sinha
was appointed the first Indian law member of the government of India.
Jinnah fully supported the move as Satyendra Sinha was a very capable
person, even though the Muslim Leaguers wanted a Muslim—but, in those
days Jinnah was above communal considerations.{Wolp/30}
1909 : Savarkar’s Book
Publication of the book ‘The Indian War of Independence’ 1857 by VD
Savarkar on the Indian revolt of 1857 so rattled the British that they banned
both its Marathi and English editions, confiscating all its copies within six
months of their release. The book remained banned till independence. The
book was published while Savarkar was in London. It was surreptitiously
printed in the Netherlands and shipped to India, quickly becoming a bible
for the nationalists.
1 July 1909 : Madan Lal Dhingra’s Revolutionary Act
Revolutionary Madan Lal Dhingra shot dead Curzon Wylie at London.
Wylie was Political Aide-de-camp to the Secretary of State of India, and
was head of the Secret Police. Dhingra was hanged on 17 August 1909.
1909: Nasik Conspiracy Case
Anant Laxman Kanhere of VD Savarkar's Abhinav Bharat Society shot
dead the District Magistrate of Nasik AMT Jackson on 21 December 1909.
27 members of the Abhinav Bharat Society were convicted and punished.
Ganesh Savarkar, brother of VD Savarkar, was sent to Kala Pani.
Although the victim Jackson used to portray himself as a person
sympathetic to India, in practice, he left no stone unturned to favour the
British, and mercilessly put down all Indian aspirations. During his tenure
in Nasik, once when an English officer beat an Indian to death for merely
touching his golf ball, he was merely transferred, and the Indian was
declared dead on account of an ailment. A group shouting ‘Vande Mataram’
was charged with anti-national activities, and prosecuted. A lawyer who
appeared pro bono for revolutionaries was barred from court, his property
was confiscated, and he was imprisoned.
Anant Kanhere was just 18 at the time of the act. He was hanged in the
Thane Prison on 19 April 1910. Krishnaji Karve and Vinayak Deshpande,
the co-plotters and back-ups for eliminating Jackson, were also hanged.
1910 : Savarkar’s Kalapani
Veer Savarkar was arrested in 1910 for his revolutionary activities; and
following his daring, but failed, attempt to escape while being transported
from Marseille, a port city in southern France, he was re-arrested. He was
sentenced to two life terms of imprisonment totalling fifty years and was
moved to the Cellular Jail in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. He was,
however, released in 1921.
1911–1915
12 December 1911: Bengal Partition Annulled [P]
Partitioned (in 1905) Bengal was re-united under Viceroy Hardinge to
appease the Bengali sentiments, and to make administration easier
(Strangely, the logic for its partition in 1905 was to make administration
easier!). The announcement of reunification was made by King George V in
the Coronation Durbar in Delhi on 12 December 1911.
While the West and East Bengal were rejoined, Bihar and Orrisa were
hived off as separate provinces on 1 April 1912.
Most Muslims were not happy with the reunification, and wondered
what worth was their loyalty to the British if this had to happen. Thanks to
the partition of 1905 they had got their Muslim-majority East Bengal as an
Islamic state, and they wanted it to continue it that way. ‘Zamindar’, a
Muslim newspaper of Lahore, indeed wrote: “The Government has undone
an Islamic province by one stroke of the pen.”{Mak/25}
12 December 1911: Decision to Shift Capital to Delhi
King George V announced shifting of capital from Calcutta to New
Delhi. Why shift out of Calcutta? Bengal had become a ‘dangerous’ ground
on account of revolutionaries.
15 December 1911: New Delhi Foundation Stone
The foundation stone of New Delhi was laid by King George V at
Kingsway Camp. Large parts of New Delhi were planned by Edwin
Lutyens. The contract was given to Sir Sobha Singh (Khushwant Singh’s
father). Construction really began after WW-I and was completed by 1931.
Edwin Lutyens’ Contempt for Indians
Our TV and print media keep referring admiringly to the area of Raisina
Hill, Rajpath, and so on as Lutyens’ Delhi, after the British architect, Edwin
Lutyens, who designed it. When Edwin Lutyens descendants visited Delhi,
they were accorded grand receptions from the President down, even though
Edwin Lutyens had only contempt for India and Indians, and often used
insulting adjectives about them. Such attitude is also revealed in his letters
to his wife compiled in a book “The Letters of Edwin Lutyens to his Wife
Lady Emily” edited by Clayre Percy and Jane Ridley. Unimpressed with
anything Indian, including India’s architectural marvels, Edwin Lutyens
described ‘natives’ (Indians) as ‘blacks’ who were beyond redemption, as,
in his words, “the average Indian seems a hopeless creature” and “the low
intellect of the natives spoils much and I do not think it possible for the
Indians and Whites to mix freely and naturally.” He wrote of Tamils in
Chennai (then Madras): “But oh the people—the scallywags. Awful faces,
to me degenerate, very dark, very naked, and awful habits of hair dressings.
The bulk of the faces merely loony.” Hindu idols revolted him, as, in his
words, they were “terrible, a creature with four arms and as many legs”. In
rage, he wrote of his Indian assistant: “They ought to be reduced to slavery
and not given the rights of man and beaten like brute beasts and shot like
man eaters.”
Given the above, which self-respecting Indian would ever bring the
name Edwin Lutyens on his tongue, or ever refer to a piece of real-estate in
New Delhi as Lutyens’ Delhi. But, such is the culture promoted by Nehru-
dynasty and the Lutyens’ cabal, and such is our shamelessness and
ignorance that we honour and eulogise those who humiliated us!!
27 December 1911: ‘Jana Gana Mana’
‘Jana Gana Mana’ set to Raag Alhiya Bilawal was written by
Rabindranath Tagore, and was based on the first of the five stanzas of the
Brahmo hymn titled Bharoto Bhagyo Bidhata, its underlying message being
pluralism. It was first sung on 27 December 1911 at the Calcutta Session of
the Congress. It was adopted in its Hindi version by the Constituent
Assembly as the National Anthem of India on 24 January 1950.
1913: Tagore gets Nobel
Rabindranath Tagore awarded Nobel Prize in Literature.
1913: Jinnah joins AIML
Jinnah had joined the Indian National Congress (INC) in 1906.
However, he joined the All Indian Muslim League (AIML), after
considerable pressure and persuasion of Muslim leaders, in 1913. In those
days one could simultaneously be a member of the INC and of AIML. Still
regarding himself as a secular all-India leader, above communal
considerations, he advised the AIML that his “loyalty to the Muslim League
and the Muslim interest would in no way and at no time imply even the
shadow of disloyalty to the larger national cause to which his life was
dedicated.”{Wolp/34}
Jinnah had sailed with Gopal Krishna Gokhale to England in April
1913, and based on his experience and talks with Jinnah, Gokhale had
remarked that Jinnah “had true stuff in him, and that freedom from all
sectarian prejudice which will make him the best ambassador of Hindu-
Muslim Unity.”{Wolp/35}
In December 1913, despite pressure from League leaders, Jinnah had
proposed postponing reaffirmation of faith in the principle of “communal
representation” for another year, urging his co-religionists that such special
representation would only divide India into “two watertight compartments”.
{Wolp/36}
9 January 1915: Gandhi’s Return to India
Gandhi returned from South Africa to a hero’s welcome on 9 January
1915, landing at Apollo Bunder (permitted by the British as a special case)
in Mumbai. He was honoured at a magnificent reception in the palatial
house of Jehangir Bomanji Petit (1879–1946), a philanthropist, and owner
of Petit Mills, and Chairman of the Bombay Mill Owners Association.
The British Government of India too honoured him—Gandhi received
‘Kaiser-I-Hind’ gold medal in the King’s birthday honours list of 1915. It
appears that what he had done in South Africa coupled with his association
with Gopal Krishna Gokhale (9 May 1866 – 19 February 1915) made the
British and the business houses regard Gandhi as a “safe” politician. They
wanted him to step into the shoes of the safe reformist Gokhale, rather than
gravitate towards Tilak.
Earlier, in 1914, in a reception in London, Gandhi had urged the Indians
to think “imperially”, and “do their duty” to the Empire—in the context of
the WW-I.
Gokhale, Gandhi’s political mentor in India, had advised him to eschew
politics for a year, to not express himself upon public questions, and to tour
India.
1915: THE GRAND GHADAR MUTINY
The Ghadar Mutiny or the Ghadar Conspiracy—aka the Hindu–
German Mutiny or the Indian–German Mutiny—was meant to trigger
mutiny in the British-Indian Army during 1915-17, both within India and
outside India where the Indian troops were stationed, aimed at ending the
British Raj. The name Ghadar derived from the Ghadar Party of North
America formed by the Sikhs in Canada and the US. The plot was jointly
conceived by the Ghadar Party in the US, the Berlin Committee, the
underground revolutionaries in India, and the German Foreign Office
through their consulate in San Francisco. Please check “Ghadar Party”
under the chapter “Notable Personalities/ Revolutionary Groups)”.
The Berlin Committee, subsequently called the Indian Independence
Committee, was formed in Germany by CR Pillai and VN Chatterjee. Its
members included students in Europe and members from India House.
Some of them were Abhinash Bhattacharya, P Pillai, Abdul Hafiz, AR
Pillai, MPT Acharya and Gopal Paranjape. German government supported
them. They also had links with the revolutionary Jatin Mukherjee (Bagha
Jatin: details under “Notable Personalities”) of the Jugantar Party.
Following in the foot-steps of Shyamji Krishna Varma who had founded
the India House in London in 1905, similar organisations had sprouted in
the US and Japan, thanks to the efforts of the Indian students and academics
there. An ‘India House’ was founded in Manhattan in New York in January
1908. Madame Cama, closely associated with Shyamji Krishna Varma, had
also visited the US on a lecture tour, working up patriotic revolutionary
zeal. With the arrival of Lala Har Dayal on the West Coast, the Indian
patriotic activities on the East Coast gradually shifted to San Francisco
laying the foundation for the Ghadar Movement, that also bridged the gap
between the intellectual agitators and the predominantly Punjabi labour
workers and migrants on the West Coast.
Nationalist Indian students like PS Khankhoje, Kanshi Ram, and Tarak
Nath Das founded the Indian Independence League in Portland in 1908.
Khankhoje was one of the founding members of the Pacific Coast
Hindustan Association. He had also enrolled in a West Coast Military
Academy. He met Lala Har Dayal in 1911, and subsequently founded the
Ghadar Party. He was at the time one of the most influential members of the
party.
The Ghadar Party was formed in 1913 in the US under the leadership of
Lala Har Dayal Singh. Many of its members, including Har Dayal, PS
Khankhoje, Tarak Nath Das, Kartar Singh Sarabha and VG Pingle, were
drawn from the University of California, Berkeley. The party gained
support from Indian expatriates in the US, Canada, Europe and Asia—its
meetings were held in Washington DC, Los Angeles, Oxford, Vienna, and
Shanghai. Its aim was to overthrow the British Raj in India by armed
insurrection. Its main strategy was to fire up the Indian soldiers in the
British-India army with patriotism, and cause mutiny. Its Yugantar Ashram
Press in San Francisco printed Hindustan Ghadar newspaper and nationalist
literature. It established contact with prominent revolutionaries in India,
including with Rash Behari Bose. ‘Hindustan Ghadar’, an Indian edition of
the paper, espoused anarchism and revolutionary terrorism against the
British.
The Conspiracy: Major portion of the British-Indian army was deployed
abroad in WW-I, and a relatively nominal force was stationed in India. That
was seen as a golden opportunity by the Ghadar conspirators to ignite
mutiny in the drastically reduced forces in India, and overthrow the Raj.
Hundreds of Ghadarites landed in India from abroad, and together with the
local ones got in touch with their sympathisers in the army, and
strengthened the network. Arrangements had also been made to procure
arms. The activities of motley groups of Ghadarites was gradually
organised under the common umbrella of the leadership of Sachindranath
Sanyal in Benares, Rash Behari Bose in North India, and VG Pingle in
Maharashtra.
A unified general uprising was planned for 21 February 1915: the 23rd
Cavalry in Punjab was to seize weapons and kill their officers while on roll
call; mutiny in the 26th Punjab; advance on Delhi and Lahore; revolt by the
130th Baluchi Regiment at Rangoon; revolts in the 7th Rajput, 130th
Baluch, 24th Jat Artillery, the 12th Cavalry regiment at Meerut, and other
regiments; mutinies in Firozpur, Lahore, and Agra, and so on. It was an
elaborate plan.
About 850 troops of the 5th Light Infantry stationed at Singapore, and
nearly 100 men of the Malay States Guides successfully mutinied on 15
February 1915—it lasted 7 days, and resulted in the deaths of 47 British
soldiers. After the mutiny was suppressed, about 800 mutineers were either
shot, or imprisoned, or exiled.
Even after the February 1915 plot was scuttled, the plans for an uprising
continued in Bengal by the Jugantar Group under Jatin Mukherjee (Bagha
Jatin). “The Christmas Day Plot” for 25 December 1915 was hatched, when
the 14th Rajput Regiment in Calcutta would be won over, and the control of
Bengal would be obtained. The plan was, however, leaked. Jatin and his
group were cornered by the British on 9 September 1915 on the banks of
the river Burha Balang, and in the ensuing gun battle Jatin was seriously
injured, and died the next day in Balasore, Odisha.
Internationally, the conspiracy was also directed at the Indian troops
serving in the Middle East. Exiled Indian prince Raja Mahendra Pratap had
led an Indo-German mission to Afghanistan in 1915 to convince the Afghan
Emir Habibullah Khan to break with Britain, declare Afghan independence,
join the WW-I on the Central side, and invade British India. The
Provisional Government of India was formed in December 1915 to force
Emir's hands. After the Russian revolution, Pratap met Trotsky in
Petrograd, Lenin in Moscow, and Kaiser in Berlin to work out a joint
Soviet-German offensive through Afghanistan into India.
Lala Har Dayal and PT Acharya of the Berlin Committee visited
Baghdad and Syria in the summer of 1915 with a mission aimed at
assassinating the British officers by infiltrating the Indian Expeditionary
Force in Mesopotamia and Egypt. A group led by PN Dutt and Pandurang
Khankoje distributed nationalist and revolutionary literature among Indian
troops in Mesopotamia and Persia. Another group, along with Egyptian
freedom fighters, attempted blocking the Suez Canal.
Such various groups carried out successful clandestine propaganda
among the Indian troops, and recruited Indian POWs into the Indian
National Volunteer Corps. The Indian National Volunteer Corps, led by
Amba Prasad Sufi, Kedar Nath Sondhi, Rishikesh Letha and Amin
Chaudhry, made incursions into western India through Persia and
Baluchistan. Amba Prasad Sufi was killed, but the Ghadarites carried on
guerrilla warfare along with Iranian partisans until 1919.
Unfortunately, the British intelligence infiltrated the Ghadar Movement,
and thwarted its plans. Mutinies in smaller units and garrisons within Indian
army were crushed, and key conspirators were arrested. However, many
managed to escape, including Rash Behari Bose, who ultimately landed in
Japan. This movement was suppressed by means of a massive international
counter-intelligence operation and draconian political acts like the Defence
of India Act 1915.
Of the 291 Ghadar Conspirators of February-1915 mutinies subjected to
the Lahore Conspiracy Trial in April 1915, 42 were awarded death
sentences, 114 transportations for life, and 93 were awarded varying terms
of imprisonment. Many were sent to the Cellular Jail in the Andamans
(Kalapani). There were also trials for the Benares, Shimla, Delhi, and
Ferozepur conspiracy cases. The Hindu–German Conspiracy Trial
commenced in the US in San Francisco on 12 November 1917.
To nip in the bud a repeat of the Ghadar-like conspiracy the Rowlatt
Acts were rammed through in 1919, the protest against which resulted in
the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre. The Ghadar Conspiracy was among the
most significant threats to the British Raj. It inspired the activities of Rash
Behari Bose and Netaji Subhas Bose during the WW-II, and the formation
of IIL and INA that were actually instrumental in gaining independence for
India.
The Ghadar Party Memorial Hall in Jalandhar in Punjab commemorates
the Ghadar Conspirators. The Ghadar Memorial Hall in San Francisco
honours those who were hanged following the Lahore Conspiracy Trial.
The Indian postage stamps honouring Lala Har Dayal, Bhai Parmanand,
Rash Behari Bose, and others have been brought out.
1916–1920
1916 : THE LUCKNOW PACT [P]
The Lucknow Pact refers to the agreement between the Congress (INC),
then led by Bal Gangadhar Tilak, and the Muslim League (AIML), then led
by Muhammad Ali Jinnah—the pact was confirmed at their respective
annual sessions at Lucknow on 29 and 31 December 1916.
Why did the AIML (backed by the British) which was otherwise set up
as a counterpoise to the INC take such a step? A number of Muslim leaders
were put off by the annulment of the partition of Bengal in 1911, which had
given them a Muslim-majority East Bengal. Many Muslims also became
hostile to the British on account of the treatment meted out to the Caliph of
Turkey in the First World War—Caliph or Khalifa of Turkey was regarded
as the religious head of all Muslims all over the world.
The Pact stipulated, inter alia, the following:
Provincial Legislative Councils (PLCs): PLCs shall comprise 80%
elected and 20% nominated members—the elections being on as broad a
franchise as possible; the term of office shall be 5 years; adequate provision
for representation of important minorities; Muslims to be elected through
special/separate electorates, the seats reserved for them being 50% in
Punjab, 40% in Bengal, 33% in Bombay (Muslim Population: 20%), 30%
in United Provinces (Muslims: 14%), 25% in Bihar (Muslims: 13%), 15%
in Central Provinces (Muslims: 4%), and 15% in Madras, that is, whole of
South (Muslims: 7%); no Bill shall be proceeded with if 75% of the
members of a community in the particular Council, Imperial and Provincial,
oppose the Bill; except customs, posts, telegraph, mint, salt, opium,
railways, army, and tribute from Princely States, all other sources of
revenue shall be provincial; all bills passed by PLCs shall have to receive
assent of the Governor before they become law, but may be vetoed by the
Governor-General.
Imperial Legislative Council (ILC): 80% of the members to be elected;
the electorate shall be the elected members of the PLCs; the term of office
shall be 5 years; all bills passed by ILC shall have to receive assent of the
Governor-General before they become law; the Crown may exercise its veto
on any bill passed by PLCs or ILC.
The Government of India (GoI): GoI will be headed by Governor-
General, who will have an Executive Council, half of whose members shall
be Indian, who shall be elected by the elected members of ILC.
Other Matters: The Secretary of State of India shall be assisted by two
permanent under-secretaries, one of whom shall be Indian; both the
commissioned and non-commissioned ranks shall be thrown open to
Indians in the military and naval services of His Majesty.
Certain parts of the above were accepted by the British, and were
embodied in the Government of India Act of 1919.
Through the Lucknow Pact, the Congress effectively endorsed both the
communal electorates, and the communal veto. This proved to be yet
another major step in the communalisation of politics that ultimately
resulted in Partition and Pakistan. It is significant that since 1890 Tilak had
been criticizing Ranade and Gokhale for not facing up to and standing
against the Muslim communalism, but in 1916, through the Lucknow Pact,
Tilak became unreasonably generous to Muslims. Of course, both Gokhale
and Tilak did so for the sake of Hindu-Muslim unity and to forge a joint
front against the British, but apparently they had not factored in the strong
Muslim sectarian self-interests, their belief of ‘Islam above nation’, or
rather, ‘Islam a separate nation’, and the British guile bent upon ensuring
Hindu-Muslim disunity and enmity.
Its leaders being mostly selfish and self-seeking, protecting their turf
and narrow group interests, and being all supplicants of the British, the
Muslim League was on the fringe of national politics. However, the
Lucknow Pact suddenly made the Muslim League a force to reckon with,
and launched them as a major factor in the national politics. Indians and
Hindus have always lost through their foolish, self-defeating generosity,
lack of foresight, and inability to learn lessons from their oppressive history.
The Pact earned for Jinnah the title the “Ambassador of Hindu-Muslim
Unity” from Sarojini Naidu. It is another matter that the spirit and the
purpose of the Lucknow Pact was soon forgotten by the Muslim leadership.
Commented Jinnah: “Our constitutional battle may be said to have been
half won already.”{Mak/27} Very soon the Muslim leadership began to demand
the same disproportionately (disproportionate to its population) high
representation/reservation for Muslims in local bodies, government jobs,
and educational institutions.
It was bizarre that even after the bitter Partition and Pakistan, the
Muslim political groups in India pushed for communal electorates in the
post-independence India, and leaders like Maulana Azad supported it. It
was only thanks to Sardar Patel that the mischief was nipped in the bud.
1915: ALL INDIA HOME RULE LEAGUE
The All India Home Rule League was launched by Annie Besant in
September 2015. Tilak, Jinnah, Joseph Baptista, GS Khaparde, Sir S
Subramania Iyer, and others came together under its umbrella in April 2016.
Its objectives were to establish self-government; endeavour to achieve
home-rule by promoting political education and discussions; embolden the
Indians against the British suppression, etc.
1917 : CHAMPARAN & GANDHI
Gandhi visited Champaran in Bihar, near the Nepal border, on 10 April
1917 along with Dr Rajendra Prasad, and others. He was invited there by
disgruntled tenant farmers of indigo plantations (blue dye) who alleged
unfair treatment by their European masters: for many years, they had been
forced into planting indigo (for dyes) on a portion of their land and then
selling it at below-market prices to the British planters who had leased them
the land. Reportedly, a Bihari farmer Rajkumar Shukla approached Gandhi
in Lucknow in 1916 with a request to examine their plight, and pursued
Gandhi wherever he went till Gandhi agreed to accompany him.
However, WB Heycock, the district magistrate, ordered Gandhi to leave
the district. Refusing to comply, Gandhi responded: “I feel it to be my duty
to say that I am unable to leave this district, but if it pleases the authorities
I shall suffer the penalty of disobedience. I have disregarded the order
served upon me in obedience to the higher law of our being, the voice of
conscience.” That defiance on the part of Gandhi won him many admirers.
The Raj conceded Gandhi’s right to conduct his inquiry, and Gandhi
went about systematically and meticulously documenting all the relevant
facts through his interviews and cross-questioning of tenants. Gandhi was
able to work out an unassailable case in favour of the tenants. The Raj, to
somehow head-off Gandhi, appointed the Champaran Agrarian Committee
to go into the issue, in which Gandhi was made a member. Gandhi’s
thorough documentation of the woes of some 8000 tenants ultimately won
the day, and the Committee recommended abolition of the exploitive
‘tinkathia’ system. They also proposed refund by the British planters to the
extent of 25% of the illegal recovering from farmers—that was queer: why
only 25%? But, that had been the way Gandhi operated: compromise, give
up, or drastically dilute the original demands. However, thanks to those
Gandhian efforts, the Champaran Agrarian Act came into force in Bihar on
29 November 1917.
1917–18: SARDAR PATEL’S SUCCESSFUL AGITATIONS
1917: Start of Sardar Patel’s Association with Gandhi
Initially, Patel did not have much interest in Gandhian politics. He was
reported to have joked to Mavlankar: “He [Gandhi] will ask you if you know
how to sift pebbles from wheat. And that is supposed to bring
independence.”{RG2/L-637} Incidentally, Ganesh Vasudev Mavalankar (1888–
1956) aka Dadasaheb was a Maharashtrian from Ratnagiri who had studied
law at Ahmedabad, and had settled there. That’s how he came into contact
with Patel. Mavalankar was the President of the Central Legislative
Assembly from 1946 to 1947, then Speaker of the Constituent Assembly of
India, and subsequently the first Speaker of the Lok Sabha.
When Gandhi set up his Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad, many were
attracted to it—some out of curiosity, and others out of genuine respect.
Patel, who was practising in Ahmedabad, remained unimpressed for over a
year, and took no interest in Gandhi or Gandhism. Still a chain-smoking,
bridge-playing barrister in suit and tie and hat, he remained dismissive of
Gandhi.{BK/47}
There is an interesting episode about the arrival of Gandhi at the
Ahmedabad club, where Sardar Patel was playing bridge. While almost all
members rushed to meet Gandhi, Patel remained seated. When asked, Patel
derisively commented he did not look forward to lessons in cleaning toilets;
and that bridge needed intellect, and was a much better pursuit!{URL5}
However, Gandhi’s acts during 1916-17 attracted Patel’s attention:
Champaran Satyagraha, Gandhi’s representation to the Viceroy on the
abolition of indentured labour, and its acceptance; removal of custom’s
barrier at Viramgam at Gandhi’s instance; and to top them all the
Champaran episode, where Gandhi had given a firm and dignified rebuff to
the Raj. Impressed by them, Patel accepted Gandhi as his Guru; although he
was never blindly supportive of Gandhi. Gandhi’s agrarian thrust through
Champaran particularly impressed Patel, for he was a farmer’s son.
Patel entered politics towards the end of 1917 when he attended the
Gujarat Sabha’s Provincial Political Conference at Godhra presided by
Gandhi, and attended, among others, by Tilak and Jinnah. Patel attended the
Conference as an ordinary delegate donning a dhoti, instead of the usual
European clothes. Patel was appointed as a secretary in the Conference
along with Indulal Yagnik, while Gandhi was appointed as the President.
1917 : Sardar Patel’s Fight Against Veth & Plague
Sardar fought against veth, and finally got it abolished. Veth was forced
servitude of Indians to Europeans: it was customary for an official visiting a
village to command the services of carpenters, barbers, bullock-cart-wallas,
kulis, sweepers, and potters for various odd jobs without payment, and
make them wait on the officials.
Plague broke out in Ahmedabad at the end of 1917, leading to closure of
schools and courts. Many left the city. But, Vallabhbhai, ignoring his
personal safety, refused to move out of his residence at Bhadra in
Ahmedabad. He moved around in streets, getting the sewers cleaned. He
mounted massive relief efforts for plague and famine.
1918 : Sardar Patel’s Kheda Agitation
The peasants of Kheda had been agitating for exemption from taxation
in the wake of plague and famine, but their plea had been turned down by
the British authorities. Gandhiji was supportive of their demand, but was
busy elsewhere. Gandhiji was delighted when Patel readily volunteered for
the assignment. It was a full time job, and it meant abandonment of his law-
practice which Patel had built up with considerable efforts, the obvious
consequence of which was to give up all material ambitions. Patel took a
conscious, considered decision, and jumped into the peasant struggle,
sacrificing everything.
Patel toured Kheda villages in 1918, mobilising villagers for state-wide
refusal for payment of taxes—emphasising potential hardships, need for
complete unity and non-violence despite any provocation—while also
documenting their grievances. He was helped in the effort by Narhari
Parikh, Mohanlal Pandya, Ravi Shankar Vyas and Abbas Tyabji.
The revolt invited government wrath. Upon refusal of tax, the
government's collectors and inspectors sent in thugs to seize property and
cattle, while the police forfeited the lands and other agrarian property. The
revolt was astounding: even when all their personal property, land and
livestock were seized, Kheda's farmers remained firmly united. Those who
sought to buy the confiscated property were ostracized. The mobilisation
was so effective, and the agitation was so successful that the government
was ultimately forced to negotiate with Patel. Revenue was suspended for
that year and the next, the revenue-rate was scaled back, and the seized
property was returned.
The agitation brought Patel into the national limelight, and made him a
hero to Gujaratis. Patel was elected president of the newly formed Gujarat
Pradesh Congress Committee in 1920. He served as its president till 1945.
1918 : Mainpuri Conspiracy
Ram Prasad Bismil, through his revolutionary organisation Matrivedi,
and Genda Lal Dixit, through his armed youth organisation Shivaji Samiti,
mobilised youths in Etawah, Mainpuri, Agra and Shahjahanpur to collect
funds for the party through loot of the government treasury. The whole plan
came to be known as the ‘Mainpuri Conspiracy’. The Judiciary Magistrate
of Mainpuri held Dixit, Bismil and others as absconders on 1 November
1919.
WW-I & India’s Massive Contribution
Detailed in the previous chapter.
1918–19: MONT-FORD REFORMS & THE GOI ACT [P]
Edwin Montagu was the Secretary of State for India and Lord
Chelmsford was the Viceroy of India. Along with several others, including
an Indian Bhupendra Nath Bose (1859–1924: Bose was the President of the
Indian National Congress in 1914, and was a member and under-secretary
in the Council of the Secretary of State for India from 1917 to 1923), they
submitted a report known as Montagu–Chelmsford (Mont-Ford, in short)
Reforms for the gradual movement of India towards self-government, that
was finally incorporated in the Government of India Act 1919. It
represented the maximum concessions the British were prepared to make at
that time.
The GoI Act 1919 was an Act of the UK Parliament that received royal
assent on 23 December 1919. Some of its salient features were as follows:
Provincial Legislatures. Diarchy, that is, dual set of governments, at the
Provincial Level, with certain subjects (transferred subjects like education,
health, local government, industry, agriculture, excise, etc.) under the Indian
elected ministers, and the rest (reserved subjects like law and order, finance,
land revenue, irrigation, etc.) under the governor, managed by executive
councillors (bureaucrats). Governors were to be executive heads in
provinces. 70% of the members of the Provincial Legislatures were to be
elected.
Central Legislature. The Central Legislature was made bicameral: the
Lower House was the Legislative Assembly (like today's Lok Sabha), and
the Upper House was the Council of States (like today's Rajya Sabha). The
Lower House was to consist of 144 members: 41 nominated and 103
elected. Of the 103 elected, the break-up was to be: 52 General, 30
Muslims, 2 Sikhs, 19 Special. The Upper House was to have 60 members:
26 nominated and 34 elected. Of the 34 elected, the break-up was to be: 20
General, 10 Muslims, 3 Europeans and 1 Sikh.
Central Government Executive. The Governor-General was to be the
chief executive authority. In the Viceroy’s Executive Council of eight, three
were to be Indians.
Communal Representation. The communal representation for Muslims
was extended to include Sikhs, Europeans and Anglo Indians.
Electorate. The Franchise (right of voting) was granted to those who
paid certain minimum “Tax” to the government: those who had a property,
taxable income, and paid land revenue of Rs 3000 were entitled to vote.
Women were also given the right to vote.
Other Items. Establishment of a Public Service Commission.
Review. Provision for setting up of a statutory commission after 10 years
to review practical working of the Act: it resulted in the Simon Commission
of 1927.
The Congress declared the reforms and the Act to be short of
expectations and disappointing. However, Gandhi wrote in Young India of
31 December 1919 (after the Jallianwala massacre of 13 April 1919) on the
above Act: “The Reforms Act coupled with the Proclamation is an earnest
intention of the British people to do justice to India and it ought to remove
suspicion on that score… Our duty therefore is not to subject the Reforms
to carping criticism, but to settle down quietly to work so as the make them
a success.” However, Gandhi did an opportunistic about-turn on the Act
with the dawn of the Khilafat Movement in 1920 to endear himself with the
Muslims, and started calling the Act of 1919 as a “death trap”.
Wrote Nirad Chaudhuri: “…I said that in spite of their [Mont-Fort
Reforms] inadequacies they should have been worked, if for nothing else
than to gain administrative experience. But, of course, neither Mahatma
Gandhi nor the Congress cared for practical matters.”{NC/11}
1919: ROWLATT ACTS & SATYAGRAHA
On the promise of democratic reforms after the First World War, India
had massively contributed to the British war efforts, as detailed above.
Despite the huge economic and manpower contribution by poor India, and
despite the solemn assurance the British had given, the deceitful, dishonest
British reneged on the promise of democratic reforms, and instead came up
with the draconian Rowlatt Acts on 21 March 1919 to curb anti-Raj
agitations, sedition and revolutionary activities.
A committee chaired by SAT Rowlatt, a British judge, was tasked in
1917 with investigating “revolutionary conspiracies”, the hidden agenda
being of extending the government's war-time powers. The Rowlatt
committee presented its report in July 1918. It identified Bengal, Punjab
and the Bombay presidency as the three regions of conspiratorial
insurgency; and to deal with them the Rowlatt committee recommended use
of emergency powers like in the war-time, that included, among other
stringent measures, detention without trial. The draconian legislation also
provided for arrest and house-search without warrant; in-camera trial; non-
provision of a counsel to the accused; and no right of appeal against orders
of special tribunals. The legislation attracted a telling slogan: “No vakil
(lawyer), no daleel (argument), no appeal.”
The Rowlatt Acts of 1919 were rammed through the Legislative Council
despite the unanimous Indian opposition. The Acts amounted to betrayal of
trust by the British.
Jinnah had resigned from the Council in protest against the law. Gandhi
launched a nationwide protest against what came to be clubbed as the
“Black Acts”. In fact, it were the Rowlatt Acts that marked the emergence of
Gandhi on the national scene. On 6 April 1919, a nation-wide ‘hartal’ was
organised, and fasts were offered to oppose the laws—the event came to be
known as the Rowlatt Satyagraha.
JALLIANWALA BAGH MASSACRE 1919
The Background
Mahatma Gandhi gave a call for peaceful protest against the Rowlatt
Acts. In Punjab, two Congress leaders, Dr Satyapal and Dr Saifuddin
Kitchlew, from Amritsar were arrested on 10 April 1919, and deported. On
the Baisakhi religious day of 13 April 1919, that also happened to be
Sunday, a large unarmed crowd of about 10 to 15 thousand gathered at
about 5pm at the Jallianwala Bagh, a few hundred yards away from the
Golden Temple, in Amritsar in a festive, celebratory mood, and to also
peacefully protest the arrest of the two leaders. And, what did the British
beasts do? They decided on cold-blooded brutality to teach the natives a
lesson.
The Massacre
Jallianwala Bagh was a large open space enclosed on three sides by high
walls and buildings with only one narrow exit. Brigadier General Reginald
Dyer, the military commander of Amritsar, surrounded the Bagh with his
troops and armoured cars just before the sunset, closed off the exit and then
ordered his Gurkha and Baluchi soldiers to shoot into the crowd with their
machine-guns and rifles, without giving the slightest warning to the
peaceful crowd to disperse. A non-stop fusillade of over 1600 rounds was
fired into the crowd in a space of ten minutes. The trapped crowd had
nowhere to run or hide. Men, women and children ran helter-skelter, some
jumping into the well to escape the volley of bullets. Dyer personally
directed the firing towards the exits where the crowd was most dense; “the
targets,” he declared, were “good”{Knu/55-56}. General ordered the firing to
continue until all ammunition the soldiers had brought with them was
exhausted. He then ordered his men to leave the area, his ghastly deed done.
Dyer forbade his soldiers to give any aid to the injured, and by ordering all
Indians off the streets, prevented relatives or friends from bringing even a
cup of water to the wounded who were piled up in the field. The massacre
toll: 1,200 killed, and 3,600 wounded.
A reign of terror followed. General Dyer issued an order that Indians
using the street should crawl on their bellies; if they tried to rise on all
fours, they were struck by the butts of soldiers’ guns. He arrested many
teachers and students and compelled them to present themselves daily for
roll-calls, forcing many to walk sixteen miles a day. He had hundreds of
citizens flogged in the public square. He built an open cage, unprotected
from the sun, for the confinement of arrested persons; other prisoners he
bound together with ropes, and kept in open trucks. He had lime poured
upon the naked bodies of Sadhus, and had them exposed to the sun. He cut
off the electric and water supplies from Indian houses.
The British did their best to suppress this news of barbaric orgy of
military sadism, and managed to delay the spread of the news.
Rewarding the Butcher
Dyer showed no remorse for his beastly act. In fact, he openly bragged
about the unforgettable lesson he had taught Indians! And, he was backed
up by Sir Michael Francis O'Dwyer, the British Governor of Punjab. The
House of Lords passed a motion in his support. Sir Edwin Montagu who
rose in the British Parliament to condemn the act was shouted down with
anti-Semitic insults, and charges of Bolshevism.
But, what did the “famed” British judicial system do to Reginald
Edward Harry Dyer, the butcher of Amritsar? Nothing! He was tried by the
Hunter Commission, but got away without any punishment—he was only
censured. Hunter Commission Report was an elaborate coverup and a
laboured whitewash of Dyer’s criminality.
As if that was not enough, upon his return to Britain, Dyer was
felicitated by the British parliament, and given an honourable discharge.
The British admirers gave him a purse of 80,000 pounds and a bejewelled
sword inscribed ‘Saviour of the Punjab’! {Wiki1}
You hear educated people talk appreciatively of the author Rudyard
Kipling. A movie “The Jungle Book” based on his book has been a hit. But,
what that character, without any conscience, had done? Claiming that Dyer
was the man who had saved India, he had started a benefit fund for Dyer,
raising over £26,000!{Wiki1}
A class of Indians is so shameless, slavish, and lacking in self-respect
that it wanted to convert the house where Kipling lived in India into a
museum! Kipling used to take pleasure in heaping ridicule upon the Indian
people by the use of contemptuous expressions such as “a lesser breed
without the law”, “new-caught sullen people half devil and half child”.
Professor Gilbert Murray had said about Kipling: “If ever it were my fate
to put men in prison for the books they write, I should not like it, but I
should know where to begin. I should first of all lock up my old friend,
Rudyard Kipling, because in several stories he has used his great powers to
stir up in the minds of hundreds of thousands of Englishmen a blind and
savage contempt for the Bengali…”{Sund}
Even Warren Hastings, the Governor General, despite his horrible,
unpardonable offences in India, was ultimately acquitted by the British
“Justice” System in 1795, after a trial that lasted seven years.
Film ‘Gandhi’
In the film ‘Gandhi’ of David Attenborough, the director shows the trial
of Dyer (Hunter Commission) to impress the audience the world over the
grandness of the British judicial system; without revealing that Dyer
received no punishment, and was rewarded back home! What’s even more
shocking is that the film attracted no protest in India in this regard. The real
reason was that the film was released during the time of Indira Gandhi, was
part-financed by the government (through NFDC), with the script
informally approved by the Indira Gandhi’s Congress in power to make sure
Nehru was shown in flattering light in the film.{Gren}{Sally/113-4}
Extraction of Confessions from Dyer
Sir Chimanlal Setalvad and Jagat Narain Mulla were also members of
the Hunter Commission. Setalvad had subjected Dyer to a gruelling cross-
examination that had extracted several damning aspects (although Dyer had
coughed them up more out of bravado—imagine the gall even after the
dastardly act!) of the massacre. The soft-peddling of the Hunter
Commission Report was nullified by the Minute of Dissent signed by
Setalvad and Mulla. (Partly based on: {DD/65})
Tagore’s Condemnation
Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore renunciated his knighthood as a protest
against the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre. In a letter to the Governor General
he wrote: "...The time has come when badges of honour make our shame
glaring in their incongruous context of humiliation, and I for my part wish
to stand shorn of all special distinctions by the side of those of my
countrymen who, for their so-called insignificance, are liable to suffer
degradations not fit for human beings...."
Churchill’s Condemnation
Winston Churchill, charging Dyer with ‘frightfulness’ stated: “What I
mean by frightfulness is inflicting of great slaughter or massacre upon a
particular crowd of people with the intention of terrorising not merely the
rest of the crowd but the whole district or the whole country…”{DD/72}
Gandhi’s Inexplicably Bewildering Stand on Jallianwala
Gandhi, the ‘Apostle of Non-violence’, did NOT return any of the many
medals earned by him from the British Empire in South Africa for his
services in the British wars. (Gandhi chose to return his medals only for the
thoroughly regressive Khilafat Movement later to save the genocidal
Ottoman Empire in the far away foreign land!)
Gandhi’s press statement of 18 April 1919, four days after the massacre,
regretting the civil disobedience campaign, stated: “…I am sorry, when I
embarked upon a mass movement, I underrated the forces of evil and I must
now pause and consider how best to meet the situation.”{CWMG/Vol-17/443}
Gandhi stated the following absurdity about the victims of the
Jallianwala Massacre: “Those who died at Jallianwala were definitely not
heroic martyrs. Were they heroes they would have either unsheathed the
sword, or used at least their sticks [as if they had gone there equipped with
swords/sticks] or they would have bared their breast to Dyer and died
bravely when he came there in all insolence. They would never have taken
to their heels.”{MD/Vol-2/262}
Gandhi’s False Notions about the British
Gandhi believed in the British justice and fair play; and felt that if he
kept sucking up to them; and not letting harm come their way through
violence, by adopting and propagating non-violence, hopefully, as a quid
pro quo, the British would grant self-government and freedom.
Inexplicably, a few months after the Jallianwala Massacre, during the
Amritsar Congress Session held under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi in
December 1919, far from condemning the British Government for the
massacre, a resolution of loyalty to the emperor and of satisfaction on
successful termination of war was passed!
Sardar Patel’s Comments
Sardar Patel had commented thus on the Jallianwala Bagh tragedy :
“When the war was over we were given the Rowlatt Act which deprived us
of freedom of action. When the people protested against such a tyrannical
piece of legislation, the Government decided on a policy of suppressing all
resistance by force… And finally the Government appointed a committee
ostensibly to investigate the happenings in Jallianwala Bagh and Lahore but
actually, as it has turned out, to hush up everything. In the House of Lords,
the lords verily showed their nobility! The murder of so many innocent men
and women was to them nothing as compared with the honour of one
callous Englishman. That officer they regarded as brave, and those innocent
persons who were killed as rebels!”{NDP/113-4}
Revenge by Shahid Udham Singh
Sir Michael Francis O'Dwyer was the Lieutenant Governor of Punjab
between 1912 and 1919, and was in the saddle at the time of the Jallianwala
massacre. He unjustly and shamelessly endorsed General Reginald Dyer’s
Jallianwala Bagh carnage and termed it as “correct action”! In a telegram
sent to Dyer, O'Dwyer wrote: “Your action is correct. Lieutenant Governor
approves.”
Revolutionary Shahid Udham Singh (26 December 1899 – 31 July
1940) born in Sangrur district of Punjab avenged Jallianwala Bagh
Massacre by shooting O'Dwyer in Caxton Hall in London on 13 March
1940. District Udham Singh Nagar in Uttarakhand is named after him. He
was a member of the Ghadar Party and was influenced by Shahid Bhagat
Singh. Udham Singh had initially planned to assassinate Reginald Dyer
when he reached London in 1934.
On 31 July 1940, he was hanged at Pentonville Prison in Barnsbury,
London and buried within the prison grounds. Udham Singh stated his
motivation for killing thus: “I did it because I had a grudge against him. He
deserved it. He was the real culprit. He wanted to crush the spirit of my
people, so I have crushed him. For full 21 years, I have been trying to
wreak vengeance. I am happy that I have done the job. I am not scared of
death. I am dying for my country. I have seen my people starving in India
under the British rule. I have protested against this, it was my duty. What a
greater honour could be bestowed on me than death for the sake of my
motherland?”
Gandhi-Nehru’s Condemnable Condemnation of the Revenge
Sadly, but expectedly, Gandhi condemned the killing by Udham Singh,
saying, “…the outrage has caused me deep pain. I regard it as an act of
insanity... I hope this will not be allowed to affect political judgement…”
Jawaharlal Nehru wrote in The National Herald: “…assassination is
regretted but it is earnestly hoped that it will not have far-reaching
repercussions on political future of India.”
Freedom “fighters” against the British were always keen they remained
in the tormentors’ good books, and that nothing was done that would hurt or
annoy them, and put them out of favour.
1920S: KISAN MOVEMENT IN UP
Farmers of Awadh united and revolted against the paucity of occupancy
rights on land in many regions; exaction of tributes, cesses, gifts, forced
labour, and excessive rent by landlords; upward revision of land revenue;
payment of forced Larai Chanda (War contribution) during WW1; heavy
indebtedness; steep rise in the price of food grains; “Jajmani system” under
which, lower castes were obligated to supply certain items to the upper
castes at discounted prices; and so on. The British, to bring the Talukdars to
their side in order to counter the Congress influence, had given them free
hand to collect rents, as a result of which there was an increase in Begari
(forced labour) and Bedakhli (evicting tenant from land). In 1918, the UP
Kisan Sabha was setup by the Home Rule leaders Gauri Shanker Mishra
and Indra Narain Dwivedi with the support of Madan Mohan Malviya.
Baba Ramchandra played a stellar role 1920 onwards in organising peasants
of Awadh against the landlords, inspiring the peasants through Ramayana.
Awadh Kisan Sabha exhorted the farmers to stop working on bedakhli
land; directed them to stop giving Begari and Jajmani; and asked them to
socially boycott the farmers who violated these directions. The movement
gradually turned militant and violent by 1921, and spread to districts of
Eastern UP, where the properties of zamindars, landlords and moneylenders
were attacked.
Government amended the Awadh Rent Act in 1921.
1920 : CHAMBER OF PRINCES
The Chamber of Princes representing the Princely States was established
in 1920. The Chamber usually met once a year presided by the Viceroy. The
full Chamber used to elect from within its princely ranks a permanent
officer styled the Chancellor, who chaired the Standing Committee of the
Chamber, which used to meet more often. The last Chancellor during 1944–
47 was the Nawab of Bhopal Sir Hamidullah Khan. This Chamber of
Princes was among the major fault-lines forged by the British to ensure
their continuance through their “divide & rule” policy.
NAGPUR CONGRESS SESSION, DEC-1920
Nagpur Congress adopted Gandhi’s draft of a new constitution that
included membership of the Congress to any adult person who accepted the
goal of the Congress and was willing to pay an annual subscription of four
annas; and annual democratic elections at all levels: village, town, district,
province and all-India.
The Congress provinces did not coincide with that of the Raj; they were
further realigned linguistically—the purpose was to better communicate (in
their own language) with the people of those provinces. The provinces, with
their headquarters and languages were as follows:
Province (Headquarters): Language
(1)Ajmere-Merwara (Ajmer): Hindustani
(2)Andhra (Madras): Telegu
(3)Assam (Gauhati): Assamese
(4)Bihar (Patna): Hindustani
(5)Bengal (Calcutta): Bengali
(6)Bombay City (Bombay): Marathi-Gujarati
(7)Delhi (Delhi): Hindustani
(8)Gujarat (Ahmedabad): Gujarati
(9)Karnatak (Dharwar): Kannada
(10)Kerala (Calicut): Malayalam
(11)Mahakosal (Jabalpur): Hindustani
(12)Maharashtra (Poona): Marathi
(13)Nagpur (Nagpur): Marathi
(14)NWFP (Peshawar): Pushtu
(15)Punjab (Lahore): Punjabi
(16)Sind (Karachi): Sindhi
(17)Tamil Nadu (Madras): Tamil
(18)United Provinces (Lucknow): Hindustani
(19)Utkal (Cuttack): Oriya
(20)Vidarbha-Berar (Akola): Marathi
Elected annually by the provincial units, the Congress President would
nominate a working committee of fifteen in which he would only be primus
inter pares. All the committees, including the national committee, were new
features.
A plea was also taken up to make Hindi-Hindustani written in
Devanagari script as the rashtrabhasha (national language).
The new constitution declared the attainment of ‘swaraj’, that is, self-
rule, by “peaceful and legitimate” (in lieu of the word “constitutional”)
means, and spelled out Gandhi’s programme of non-violent non-
cooperation. However, ‘swaraj’ meant different things to different groups
within the Congress Party. The moderates urged a struggle for limited home
rule within the British Empire. The ‘purna swaraj’ (complete independence)
resolution came only in 1930.
The Nagpur session handed over the reins of the freedom struggle to
Gandhi, practically turning its back on the constitutional method of
agitation. Jinnah was opposed to Gandhi’s pseudo-religious approach to
politics, of working up mob hysteria, while giving up constitutional
methods, and decided to part company with the Gandhi-led Congress.
Declared Jinnah: “With great respect for Gandhi and those who think like
him, I make bold to say in this Assembly that you will never get your
independence without bloodshed.”{DD/76}
Many of the leaders who had opposed Gandhi’s non-cooperation
proposal at the Calcutta Congress Session of Sep-1920 came around at the
Nagpur session.
1920–30
1920–22: KHILAFAT & NON-COOPERATION MOVEMENT (KNCM)
Please see the next chapter.
AUG-SEP 1921 : MOPLAH ANTI-HINDU ATTACKS
Over a thousand years back a horde of Muslim traders landed at the
coast of Malabar. In keeping with the Hindu traditions of kindness and
generosity, the then Hindu king allowed them to settle, carry on their trade,
and build mosques. In Malayalam ‘Mopilla’ means ‘a bridegroom’ or ‘a
great child’. Hindus endearingly called those incoming Muslims ‘Mopilla’;
and their descendants came to be called as ‘Moplah’ Muslims.
Forgetting the favours done to their forefathers by the Hindus, the
Moplah Muslims, rather than targeting the British responsible for defeating
the Ottomans, butchered the Hindus, and perpetrated indescribable
atrocities on them in the terrible Moplah Anti-Hindu Attacks in 1921 in the
Malabar region of Kerala: rape, loot, killings, forcible conversions, and
driving Hindus out of their homes. The hatred spread through the mosques
and the fiery speeches of Ali brothers and other Khilafat leaders added fuel
to the fire. If one reads the horrid details of what the Muslims did then, one
would find that what the ISIS has been doing in current times does have a
history.
Statements on the Moplah Attacks
Sir Sankaran Nair wrote:
“For sheer brutality on women, I do not remember anything in
history to match the Malabar rebellion. It broke out about the 20th
of August. Even by the 6th of September the results were
dreadful…”{Nair}
Stated Viceroy Lord Reading in his speech: “A few Europeans and
many Hindus have been murdered, communications have been sacked,
houses of Europeans and Hindus were burnt. The result had been temporary
collapse of civilian government. European and Hindu refugees of all classes
are concentrated at Calicut and it is satisfactory to note that they are safe
there. Those who are responsible for this grave outbreak of violence and
crime must be brought to the justice and made suffer the punishment of the
guilty...”{PG1}
The women of Malabar, led by the senior Rani of Nilambur, petitioned
the Vicerine Lady Reading:
“…your Ladyship is not fully appraised of all the horrors and
atrocities perpetrated by the fiendish rebels of the many wells and
tanks filled up with the mutilated, but often only half dead bodies of
our nearest and dearest ones who refused to abandon the faith of our
fathers; of pregnant women cut to pieces and left on the roadsides
and in the jungles, with the unborn babe protruding from the
mangled corpse; of our innocent and helpless children torn from our
arms and done to death before our eyes and of our husbands and
fathers tortured, flayed and burnt alive; of our hapless sisters
forcibly carried away from the midst of kith and kin and subjected
to every shame and outrage which the vile and brutal imagination of
these inhuman hell-hounds could conceive of; of thousands of our
homesteads reduced to cinder mounds out of sheer savagery and a
wanton spirit of destruction; of our places of worship desecrated and
destroyed and of the images of the deity shamefully insulted by
putting the entrails of slaughtered cows where flower garlands used
to lie, or else smashed to pieces; of the wholesale looting of hard
earned wealth of generations reducing many who were formerly rich
and prosperous to publicly beg for a piece or two in the streets of
Calicut, to buy salt or chilly or betel leaf—rice being mercifully
provided by the various relief agencies. These are not fables…”{Sans}
A conference held at Calicut presided over by the Zamorin of Calicut,
the Ruler of Malabar issued a resolution:
“…That the conference views with indignation and sorrow the
attempts made at various quarters by interested parties to ignore or
minimise the crimes committed by the rebels such as: brutally
dishonouring women, flaying people alive, wholesale slaughter of
men, women and children, burning alive entire families, forcibly
converting people in thousands and slaying those who refused to get
converted, throwing half dead people into wells and leaving the
victims to struggle for escape till finally released from their
suffering by death, burning a great many and looting practically all
Hindu and Christian houses in the disturbed areas in which even
Moplah women and children took part and robbed women of even
the garments on their bodies, in short reducing the whole non-
Muslim population to abject destitution, cruelly insulting the
religious sentiments of the Hindus by desecrating and destroying
numerous temples in the disturbed areas, killing cows within the
temple precincts putting their entrails on the holy image and
hanging skulls on the walls and the roofs.”{MR}
A Committee of Distinguished Citizens comprising KP Keshava Menon,
Secretary, Kerala Provincial Congress Committee, TV Mohammed,
Secretary, Ernad Khilafat Committee, K Madhavan Nair, Secretary, Calicut
District Congress Committee, K Karanakura Menon, and KV Gopal
Menon, appointed to tour the affected areas, stated, inter alia, in their fact-
finding report:
“Truth is infinitely of more paramount importance than Hindu
Muslim unity or Swaraj and therefore we tell the Maulana Sahib and
his co-religionists and India's revered leader Mahatma Gandhi—if
he too is unaware of the events here—that atrocities committed by
the Moplahs on the Hindus are unfortunately too true and that there
is nothing in the deeds of Moplah rebels which a true non-violent,
non-co-operator can congratulate them for... Their wanton and
unprovoked attack on the Hindus, the all but wholesale looting of
their houses...; the forcible conversion of Hindus…; the brutal
murder of inoffensive Hindus, men, women and children in cold
blood without the slightest reason except that they are ‘Kaffirs’...;
the desecration and burning of Hindu temples, the outrage on Hindu
women and their forcible conversion and marriage by
Moplahs…”{Nair/137}
Wrote Ms Annie Besant: “It would be well if Mr. Gandhi could be taken
into Malabar to see with his own eyes the ghastly horrors which have been
created by the preaching of himself and his ‘loved brothers’ Mohammad
and Shaukat Ali…”{AB}
Significantly, Gandhi never called upon Muslim leaders to condemn the
brutality.
Statements by Dr Ambedkar
Wrote Dr BR Ambedkar{Amb3}: “…The blood-curdling atrocities
committed by the Moplas in Malabar against the Hindus were
indescribable. All over Southern India, a wave of horrified feeling had
spread among the Hindus of every shade of opinion, which was intensified
when certain Khilafat leaders were so misguided as to pass resolutions of
‘congratulations to the Moplas on the brave fight they were conducting for
the sake of religion’. Any person could have said that this was too heavy a
price for Hindu-Moslem unity. But Mr. Gandhi was so much obsessed by
the necessity of establishing Hindu-Moslem unity that he was prepared to
make light of the doings of the Moplas and the Khilafats who were
congratulating them. He [Gandhi] spoke of the Moplas as the ‘brave God-
fearing Moplas who were fighting for what they consider as religion and in
a manner which they consider as religious’…
“Speaking of the Muslim silence over the Mopla atrocities Mr. Gandhi
told the Hindus: ‘The Hindus must have the courage and the faith to feel
that they can protect their religion in spite of such fanatical eruptions. A
verbal disapproval by the Mussalmans of Mopla madness is no test of
Mussalman friendship… My belief is that the Hindus as a body have
received the Mopla madness with equanimity and that the cultured
Mussalmans are sincerely sorry of the Mopla's perversion of the teaching of
the Prophet [What presumption in the face of gross cruelty!]’…”{Amb3}
Statements by the Muslim Khilafat Leaders
Khilafat leaders passed resolutions after resolution congratulating
Moplahs for the brave fight they were carrying on for the sake of religion.
{Mak/102}
Gandhi’s inexplicable comments on various occasions were:
“The Moplahs are among the bravest in the land. They are God fearing.
Their bravery must be transformed into purest gold. I feel sure, that once
they realize the necessity of non-violence for the defence of the faith for
which they have hitherto taken life, they will follow it without
flinching.”{CWMG/Vol-24/190}
“…Why is it ‘strange’ that I consider the Government solely responsible
for the trouble? They could have avoided the trouble by settling the Khilafat
question, they could have avoided it by allowing non-co-operators to take
the message of non-violence to the Moplahs. The outbreak would not have
taken place if the Collector had consulted the religious sentiment of the
Moplahs. I do indeed accuse the Government of punishing the Moplahs
after they have done the mischief instead of protecting the Hindus from
Moplah outrage…
“…Hindus must find out the causes of Moplah fanaticism. They will
find that they are not without blame. They have hitherto not cared for the
Moplah. They have either treated him as a serf or dreaded him. They have
not treated him as a friend and neighbour, to be reformed and respected. It
is no use now becoming angry with the Moplahs or the Mussulmans in
general…”
“[Commending/defending Maulana Hasrat Mohani who had defended
the Muslim attackers, Gandhi wrote] …Maulana Hasrat Mohani is one of
our most courageous men. He is strong and unbending. He is frank to a
fault. In his insensate hatred of the English Government and possibly even
of Englishmen in general, he has seen nothing wrong in anything that the
Moplahs have done. Everything is fair in love and war with the Maulana.
He has made up his mind that the Moplahs have fought for their religion.
And that fact (in his estimation) practically absolves the Moplahs from all
blame... I advise my Malabar friends not to mind the Maulana. In spite of
his amazingly crude views about religion, there is no greater nationalist nor
a greater lover of Hindu-Muslim unity than the Maulana. His heart is sound
and superior to his intellect, which, in my humble opinion, has suffered
aberration…”
Handing out atrociously infuriating prescription of non-violence for the
Hindus to die “bravely”, Gandhi stated the following absurdity: “…I see
nothing impossible in asking the Hindus to develop courage and strength to
die before accepting forced conversion. I was delighted to be told that there
were Hindus who did prefer the Moplah hatchet to forced conversion. If
these have died without anger or malice, they have died as truest Hindus
because they were truest among Indians and men... Even so is it more
necessary for a Hindu to love the Moplah and the Mussalman more, when
the latter is likely to injure him or has already injured him... Hindu help is at
the disposal of the Mussalmans, because it is the duty of the Hindus, as
neighbours, to give it…”
For Gandhi, no price was too great for appeasing Muslims—lest , they
oppose the Hindus. The price for Gandhi’s Hindu-Muslim unity was always
to be paid by the Hindus. That Gandhi woefully failed to grasp the Muslim
psychology was obvious from the pronouncements of the prominent
Muslim leaders, the attitude of the Muslim League, and the conduct of the
Muslims, and ultimately the vivisection of the country.
Without doubt, the Moplah Rebellion was the result of the ‘Khilafat &
Non-Cooperation Movement’ (KNCM) launched by Gandhi jointly with the
Muslim leaders. So, in a way, Gandhi was indirectly responsible for the
ghastly fate that befell the unfortunate Hindus in Malabar at the hands of
the Moplahs.
Jawaharlal Nehru & Moplah Attacks
Nehru mysteriously overlooked the brutality of the Moplah anti-Hindu
attacks in his autobiography published in 1936. He wrote a paragraph on the
Moplah rebellion{JN2/86-87}, but mentioned not a word on their anti-Hindu
brutality!
Statement of CWC
Following in the steps of Gandhi-Nehru, the Congress Working
Committee, rather than condemning the Moplah attacks in strong terms and
calling for appropriate punishments to the perpetrators, tried to white-wash
the whole affair, by issuing tame statements like: “The Working Committee
places on record its sense of deep regret over the deeds of violence done by
Moplahs in certain areas of Malabar, these deeds being evidence of the fact
that there are still people in India who have not understood the message of
the Congress and the Central Khilafat Committee, and calls upon every
Congress and Khilafat worker to spread the message of non-violence even
under the gravest provocation throughout the length and breadth of India.
Whilst, however, condemning violence on the part of the Moplas, the
working Committee desires it to be known that the evidence in its
possession shows that provocation beyond endurance was given to the
Moplas and that the reports published by and on behalf of the Government
have given a one-sided and highly exaggerated account of the wrongs done
by the Moplas and an understatement of the needless destruction of life
resorted to by the Government in the name of peace and order.”{Arya}
Turning a blind eye to the Muslim atrocities on Hindus, the Moplah
Anti-Hindu Attacks of 1921, in a way, formed the major starting point of
the irrational policy of blind Muslim appeasement of Gandhi, Nehru and the
Congress.
JAN-1923: SWARAJ PARTY
The Swaraj Party was formed on 9 January 1923 by Deshbandhu
Chittaranjan Das, Motilal Nehru, Vithalbhai Patel, Huseyn Shaheed
Suhrawardy, Hakim Ajmal Khan, Subhas Chandra Bose, Satyamurti,
Srinivasa Iyengar and others who were unhappy with Gandhi’s withdrawal
of the Non-cooperation Movement on 5 February 1922 on the unconvincing
excuse of the Chauri-Chaura incident, and for stand of the Gandhi-faction
against the “council entry”.
As a logical next step to the Montagu–Chelmsford Reforms 1918 and
the GoI Act 1919, elections were to be held in 1923. Gandhi had, however,
called for boycott of legislatures, courts, schools, and foreign-made cloth
under the Khilafat and Non-Cooperation Movement (KNCM). Although
Gandhi had himself suspended the KNCM on 12 February 1922 on the
totally unconvincing excuse of the Chauri Chaura incident, he and his
faction still insisted on boycott of the legislatures. CR Das and the
Swarajists differed from Gandhi on this. CR Das, in his presidential address
at the Gaya Congress of the INC in December 1922, had proposed that the
Congress should accept the Council entry programme and carry the political
struggle into the Legislatures. A sensible suggestion, but it was rejected by
a motion on “No Council Entry” to Gandhi's faction. Das submitted his
resignation.
Many in the Congress, including Gandhi, had rejected the government’s
proposal for participation of Indians in the provincial and central legislative
councils, as the same, on account of its unelected members allied to the
British, were too un-democratic, and were simply rubber stamps of the
Viceroy. However, the Swarajists felt that whatever little could be achieved
through the councils-entry must be attempted. Notably, Gandhi had written
in ‘Young India’ of 31 December 1919: “The Reforms Act [GoI Act 1919]
coupled with the Proclamation is an earnest intention of the British people
to do justice to India and it ought to remove suspicion on that score… Our
duty therefore is not to subject the Reforms to carping criticism, but to
settle down quietly to work so as the make them a success.” Gandhi used to
keep changing or reversing his stand without offering any explanations; and
many of his changes used to be for the worse.
It is significant that over a decade later, following the GoI Act 1935,
Gandhi had agreed to participate in elections to enter legislatures. In a way,
Gandhi and the Gandhian faction did in 1936-37 what the Swarajists had
proposed and done over a decade ago. Gandhi thus delayed a move towards
self-government by more 16 years.
So as to avoid a split in the Congress, like it had happened with Naram
Dal vs. Garam Dal in 1907, the Swarajists remained within the Congress,
but acted in a way they thought fit. Swarajists fought the elections, and
gained a considerable following. Out of the Swarajists elected to the
councils, Vithalbhai Patel became the president of the Central Legislative
Assembly.
The Party became weak upon the death of Chittaranjan Das in 1925, and
Motilal Nehru's return to the Congress in 1926, following Gandhi’s efforts
to bring back the Swarajists.
1923: JABALPUR & NAGPUR SATYAGRAHA
Jabalpur National Flag Hoisting
In March 1923, the Jabalpur municipality passed a resolution to hoist
the national flag over the Town Hall. The District Magistrate prohibited the
same. When the flag was nevertheless hoisted, the police not only took it
off, but trampled upon the national flag. In response, the District Congress
Committee launched a satyagraha. Defying the prohibitory orders, a
procession carrying the national flag aloft was carried out led by, among
others, Pandit Sunderlal and Subhadra Kumari Chauhan, the renowned
poetess of the popular song on “Rani Laxmibai of Jhansi”.
Nagpur Satyagraha
Nagpur Agitation of April 1923 was inspired by the above happening in
Jabalpur. On 13 April 1923, the anniversary of the Jallianwala Bagh
Tragedy, the Central Provinces (C.P.) Government prohibited a peaceful
procession with the national flag from entering Civil Lines in Nagpur, its
capital. When the participants attempted to go forward with the flag into
Civil Lines, the police beat them up and even flung many into open drains.
Charles Clarke, Commissioner of Nagpur, who lived in Civil Lines, had
decided the flag would not be carried past his house, and decided to teach
“law-breakers” a lesson, even threatening to shoot those who dared to
march past his house with the national flag.
The Nagpur District Congress Committee, led by Jamnalal Bajaj,
decided to violate the restrictions; and beginning 1 May 1923, volunteers
walked with the flag towards Civil Lines each working day. They were
arrested. Each day a fresh group of volunteers courted arrest.
Sardar Patel’s Winning Role
The struggle appealed to Sardar Patel, and from June 1923 onwards he
began sending batches of volunteers from Gujarat to Nagpur. The
volunteers began pouring in from other states too. Tamil and Karnataka
groups also joined in.
The struggle and arrests went right through May, June and July, and into
August. The volunteers were dumped into Nagpur jail, and when that
overflowed, into Akola jail. Those arrested included teachers, lawyers,
businessmen, zamindars, and people like Vinoba Bhave and Ravishankar
Maharaj. While Vinoba Bhave was made to crush stones under the hot sun
in jail; Ravishankar Maharaj had to grind kilos of grain on the chakki each
day. Prisoners not fulfilling daily quotas were severely punished. Food
contained dirt and pebbles, and was hardly eatable. Toilet and sanitary
conditions were terrible. The conditions they were subjected to were so
terrible that about ten percent of those arrested, unable to withstand the
rigours, opted out by apologizing.
Jamnalal Bajaj was arrested at the end of June 1923, and was handed a
stiff 18-month rigorous imprisonment. Stung, the CWC asked Sardar Patel
to take charge of the struggle, which he did with effect from 10 July 1923.
With Sardar at the helm, the struggle became much more organised and
intense. Sardar’s brother Vithalbhai also came over to help in the struggle.
Finally, the CP Governor Sir Frank Sly reached an agreement with the
Patel brothers: Vithalbhai and Vallabhbhai. The national flag was allowed to
be carried through the Civil Lines on 18 August 1923. The struggle was
then called off, and all the prisoners were released.
SEP-1923: PATEL’S SUCCESSFUL BORSAD SATYAGRAHA
In September 1923 the government announced a levy of Rs 2.4 lakhs on
the residents of Borsad taluka as its expense on special anti-dacoity police
posted there: each person over 16 years of age was to pay two rupees and
seven annas towards the sum.{BK/89}
Sardar Patel and his colleagues uncovered evidence of the police being
in cahoots with the dacoits; and that the villagers who had shown
exemplary courage in resisting the dacoits or in informing the police were
severely victimised.
Sardar Patel and his team organised the villagers for agitation against
the levied tax. After a protracted struggle, which Sardar had organized
superbly, the government was forced to give in. Patel had this to say in the
meetings he addressed during the agitation: “We are not beggars that we
cannot afford to throw away two or three rupees. But the government wants
to take that much money after calling us associates of dacoits. If the
Government admits that its authority has vanished and its finances are poor,
we shall be quite prepared to take over the administration…{BK/94} The only
reason assigned by the Government for punishing a whole people is that
they do not provide information or evidence. Let us see how far this is true.
Babar has to his credit 22 murders. Not one of the victims was a rich man.
He did not murder them for the mere fun of it. They were informants. If
after 22 such informants were murdered the Government seriously argues
that the people do not give information, shall we ask how many policemen
were murdered?{BK/92}”
Gandhi was released from jail in a little less than two years of his six-
year sentence; and he was full of praise for Sardar Patel’s leadership during
his [Gandhi’s] incarceration. He noted “Vallabhbhai’s magnificent
organizing and administrative” skills, and his ability in having “collected
around himself a band of devoted workers of like mind and ability”{BK/99}.
Gandhi also admired the Borsad effort for social change, terming it as more
valuable.
9-11 SEPTEMBER 1924 : KOHAT ANTI-HINDU ATTACKS
The 1924 Kohat riots were major anti-Hindu attacks in British India.
During 9–11 September 1924, over 155 Hindus and Sikhs were killed by
Muslims in the Muslim-majority Kohat (not very far from Rawalpindi) in
NWFP. The entire Hindus and Sikh population had to flee the town to save
their lives.
Even earlier, for many years, the local Muslims were in the habit of
abducting Hindu women, married as well as unmarried, and converting
them to Islam. Upon complaint, even if the court decided in favour of the
Hindu husband, the Muslims would not agree to returning the wife,
considering her connection with her Hindu husband illegitimate, and
claiming it as their religious duty not to let the woman who had been
converted to Islam to go to her Hindu husband!
What was Gandhi’s remedy? A zero-effect 21-day fast in October 1924,
and an irrelevant advice:
“I can only suggest solutions of questions in terms of Swaraj. I
would, therefore, sacrifice present individual gain for future national
gain. Even if Mussalmans refuse to make approaches and even if the
Hindus of Kohat may have to lose their all, I should still say that
they are able to live at peace with the latter without the protection of
the British bayonet…”
Rather than condemning the anti-Hindu/Sikh attacks by Muslims, the
Congress, true to its irrational and blind Muslim appeasement policy,
looked for an escape route: while it deplored the incident, it requested the
Muslims to assure safety to their Hindu brethren! Motilal Nehru moved an
inconsequential resolution on the matter, and himself said: “The resolution
is a non-controversial one and commits the Congress to nothing.”{Mak/105}
Rather than honestly stating the bitter truth and condemning the Muslim
attacks, Gandhi chose to indirectly absolve the Muslims by doing a
balancing act between the Hindus-Sikhs and the Muslims, and blame the
government in his speech at Rawalpindi on 9 December 1924:
“The truth is that the tragedy at Kohat would not have occurred
and Hindus would not have run away if the Government had done
its duty... The bandits on the frontier rob anyone and everyone;
hence it is difficult to assert that all this storm was raised for looting
the Hindus only. I would, however, affirm that the looting and arson
was perpetrated not by the people but by the officials of the
frontier... I would not be sorry if this Government collapses and then
Hindus and Muslims fight a civil war and loot each other to their
heart’s content. As long as there are rancour, weakness and fear in
the hearts of both the communities, they will fight each other and
cause rivers of blood to flow... I would say only this to you, you
should prepare yourself to die with Rama’s name on your lips if the
Government is furious with you and incites the Muslims... I would
ask the frontier Hindus in a locality with 95 per cent of Muslims
never to seek the advice of the Government. You should return only
if the frontier Muslims request you to do so, if they desire to take
you back after assuring the perpetual preservation of your life and
honour. You have been staying there for many generations. How can
you stay there without their consent?... How can you stay there in
peace and comfort without their co-operation and goodwill? No
Government can guarantee safety against a majority community.
Even when swaraj is attained, and Shaukat Ali is the Commander-
in-Chief and I am the Viceroy, if somebody were to ask me to
protect a community, I would say that I could not protect it from a
community comprising 95 per cent of the population... That is the
only way to stay in the frontier with honour and goodwill. I wish to
say to you one thing before leaving. You should tell the Government
that you would not move from here as long as you do not come to
terms with the Muslims and they do not invite and conduct you
there...”{CWMG/Vol-29/432}
Gandhi should have understood the nature of the AIML leadership when
Shaukat Ali gave his report on the Kohat riots after visiting it in early 1925
that differed from Gandhi’s{RG3/95}. Much later, Muhammad Ali, Shaukat
Ali’s brother, had said he prayed for the day when he would convert Gandhi
to Islam!{RG3/100}
9 August 1925 : Kakori Train Robbery
Kakori Train Robbery (16km from Lucknow) to loot government
treasury was carried out by HRA (see above) led by Ram Prasad Bismil.
Team included Ashfaqulla Khan, Roshan Singh, Rajendra Lahiri,
Chandrashekhar Azad, Manmathnath Gupta, and others. There is a
memorial to the Kakori conspirators at Kakori established in 1983.
17–19 December 1927 : Ram Prasad Bismil and Others Hanged
Revolutionaries Ram Prasad Bismil at Gorakhpur jail, Ashfaqulla Khan
at the Faizabad Jail, and Roshan Singh at Naini Allahabad Jail were hanged
for the Kakori Train Robbery (see above) on 19 December 1927. Lahiri was
hanged on 17 December at Gonda Jail.
1924-27: PATEL’S COMMENDABLE WORK FOR AHMEDABAD MUNICIPALITY
Sardar Patel accepted an additional burden as the president of the
Ahmedabad municipality from February 1924. Denied power at the national
or provincial level, many Congress leaders chose civic leadership.
Vallabhbhai’s elder brother Vithalbhai, Jawaharlal Nehru, Dr Rajendra
Prasad, Chitta Ranjan Das headed municipal bodies in Bombay, Allahabad,
Patna, and Calcutta respectively. The Bose brothers had also headed the
Calcutta municipality.
Sardar had proved early on that he was not a mere leader after posts and
positions, but that he was a devoted man of action in the service of the
people. He would visit wards each morning, and inspect work-sites,
accompanied by concerned officials. Complainants could visit him
personally in the afternoon. Impressed by his honesty, commitment and
hard work, municipal staff gave out their best. All that made for solid
achievements with the passage of time.
Before leaving active participation in the Ahmedabad municipality in
1927, Sardar had ensured that the drainage, that covered only one-third of
Ahmedabad when he took over, covered the whole city; and over half the
city had access to piped drinking water. He acquired 21 acres for the city
along Sabarmati, which were later used for hospital and other utilities. He
arranged for setting up of a third public health laboratory at Ahmedabad,
after the only two at Pune and Karachi.
Sardar initiated removal of sexual disqualification in the district
municipal act that barred women from contesting elections. He had the
section removed in 1926 in Ahmedabad. Sardar also commissioned the first
Gujarati typewriter in 1924 through a tie-up with Remington.
Collector Garrett had commented on the Ahmedabad municipality in
1925 that it was “very active in the disposal of business… much credit is
due to the present board and its President for infusing a new life into
municipal administration.” Later, Commissioner Smart had admired “the
enthusiasm with which various departments of the municipality were
functioning”{RG2/L-2355}.
In sharp contrast to Sardar, Jawaharlal Nehru, as head of the Allahabad
municipality, couldn’t really deliver, and chose to resign. Although
enthusiastic, he was more of a pen-pusher, and didn’t have the tact to
practically achieve his goals. Allahabad and Ahmedabad municipality had
similar problems and issues, but while Sardar succeeded in Ahmedabad,
Nehru failed in Allahabad. The ability and the position didn’t seem to have
changed after independence: whatever Sardar took responsibility of
succeeded, while Nehru floundered from one blunder to another.
1927: PATEL’S UNFORGETTABLE WORK DURING AHMEDABAD FLOODS
Commencing 23 July 1927, Ahmedabad experienced heavy downpour
that ceased only by 29 July 1927. In mere six consecutive days Ahmedabad
received massive 52 inches (1320.8 mm) of rain against an average of just
30 inches (762 mm) of rain for the whole year. Compare this with
Mumbai’s worst rains on 26 July 2005 of 944 mm on a single day (in 24
hours)! Chennai had received 345 mm rains in 24 hours on 1 December
2015, and a total of 1197 mm of rains during the whole of November 2015.
Over 4000 villages around Ahmedabad were marooned in five feet deep
water. The grim picture stretched for miles. Many houses had collapsed. As
the water rose many took shelter on tree-tops.
Vallabhbhai went around with his colleagues even during nights to
monitor the status and to ensure whatever could be done was done by the
municipal staff and volunteers. He organised a large contingent of
volunteers. Thanks to Patel’s efforts, the staggering problem was contained.
Hugh Garrett, an ICS officer, worked closely with Patel for flood-relief
for many months. He was all praise for Patel’s organising abilities,
decisiveness, honesty and frankness. Sardar’s humanitarian efforts for
months on end were widely appreciated. It was realised that the government
despite its vast resources could not have done what Patel and his team
accomplished. To see for themselves the much-acclaimed achievement,
Lady Irwin and Viceroy Irwin visited Gujarat in December 1927.{BK/195}
The British administrators were so impressed they sought Sardar Patel’s
permission to recommend him for suitable honours. Sardar, of course,
declined the offer.
1928: PATEL’S BARDOLI SATYAGRAHA 1928
The government of the Bombay Presidency, rather than providing
succour to the people of Bardoli in Gujarat severely affected by floods and
famine since 1925, raised land revenue by 30% in 1927. Petitions from
civic groups had no effect. What is noteworthy is that the arbitrary
enhancement of 30%, as a part of periodic revision, was recommended not
by an Englishman, but by an Indian member of the Provincial Civil Service
(PCS), MS Jayakar, who then was Deputy Collector of Surat. Indians in the
ICS and PCS were prone to indulgence in such acts at the cost of their
compatriots to butter up their British masters, and demonstrate their loyalty
(servility).{BK/109-10}
When farmers, along with the Gujarati activists Narhari Parikh, Ravi
Shankar Vyas, and Mohanlal Pandya, approached Patel, who had earlier led
the Kheda struggle, to lead an agitation to bring relief to people, Patel
minced no words in frankly advising them the tremendous hardships they
would be subjected to if they refused payment of taxes, as it was likely to
lead to strong-arm tactics, confiscation of their property, and jail.
Addressing the peasants on 12 February 1928, he said: “I still ask you to
think twice before you take the plunge. Do not derive comfort from the
feeling that you have as your leader a fighter like myself. Forget me and
forget my companions. Fight, if you feel you must resist oppression and
injustice. Do not take the plunge lightly. If you miserably fail, you will not
rise again for several years. But if you succeed, you will have done much to
lay the foundations of Swaraj.”{BK/115} Patel addressed scores of meetings in
language understood by the rural folk. The exceptional eloquence of his
speeches, laced with popular rural similes and metaphors and sarcasm and
anecdotes, moved them immensely.
When the villagers expressed their resolve not to bend down to injustice
and face the worst, Patel agreed to back them. Patel, in turn, asked for
Gandhi’s support. Gandhi advised that neither he (Gandhi) himself nor the
Congress could directly involve themselves. But when Patel assured him of
hopeful prospects given the resolve of the villagers, Gandhi agreed to give
his blessings.
Patel organised villages under a set of leaders and volunteers, and also
planted informers within the government departments to know in advance
their various moves. Villages were grouped into 18 sectors, each under a
sector-commander. Under each sector-commander were sets of volunteers
designated as ‘sainiks’ (soldiers). It was all on a military pattern. Sector-
commanders included people like Ravishankar Maharaj, Mohanlal Pandya,
Dr Chunilal Mehta and wife, Ambalal Patel, Patel’s daughter Maniben
Patel, Mithuben Petit of the rich Parsi family of Bombay, Abba Saheb
Tayabji, Abdul Kadar Bavazir, and others. Peasants of all castes and
religions participated in the satyagraha.{BK/118-20}
Patel started by first writing to the Governor of Bombay to reduce the
taxes for the year. The Governor responded by announcing the date of
collection of taxes. Patel then promptly gave a call to the villagers to refuse
payment of taxes. He instructed them to remain completely non-violent.
Before the Government had time to assess what was happening and what
lay in store, over 80,000 people had been organised into various units in a
disciplined manner. The Raj later tried desperately to break them up, but in
vain.
At the advice of Patel, and aided by his group of leaders and volunteers,
the farmers had prepared themselves for all eventualities, hiding their
precious belongings with their relatives staying in other unaffected parts of
Gujarat; and had also arranged for supplies and logistics from supporters
and sympathisers outside. In other words, it was a well-planned, well
thought-out, and well-organised agitation.
A “war”-bulletin, Larat-ki-Patrika, was published and circulated on a
daily basis to keep everyone informed and geared up, and it was eagerly
lapped up by the villagers. To keep up the morale, Sardar Patel had also
arranged for Bhajan Mandalis (groups of musicians) to go around villages
each night to sing national and religious songs. The Bhajan Mandalis also
included story-tellers to regale the audience with interesting and inspiring
anecdotes and short-stories. To keep track on what was happening on the
ground, and to boost morale of the villagers, Sardar Patel used to visit
villages in the night, returning to his headquarters only at daybreak.{BK/118-9}
The way Sardar Patel had organised about 87,000 villagers into a robust
and fearless non-cooperation movement made an English correspondent
comment in ‘The Times of India’ of 4 July 1928 that Sardar Patel had
“instituted there [Bardoli] a Bolshevik regime in which he plays the role of
Lenin.”{BK2/39} An Indian member of the Bombay Legislative Council
remarked: “If Bardoli stands firm until the last, this fight will be the first
nail in the British coffin.”{BK/124}{MD2/70}
Notable in the struggle was the participation of women, which Patel
encouraged. Their bravery inspired their men to be even more committed.
As expected, the Government left no stone unturned to crush the
agitation. Bands of Pathans mobilised by the government from India’s
northwest terrorised the farmers, and aided the Tax inspectors in forcibly
seizing property, including cattle. Auctions of confiscated properties began
to be organised. But, hardly anyone from Gujarat came forward to buy.
Some greedy ones who showed up faced social boycott.
To break the morale, the administration locked up about 17,000 agitators
with some 40,000 seized buffaloes in a disease-prone, smelly, small,
insanitary hell of a place for over three months.
There was heavy criticism of the government action all over. Ultimately,
in 1928, the government had no alternative but to offer certain terms of
settlement to Sardar: terms included cancellation of revenue for the year,
scale-back of the 30% rise in taxes, and return of confiscated lands and
properties. However, Sardar Patel rebuffed the same, considering them
inadequate. But, Gandhi agreed to government’s terms, and therefore Sardar
acquiesced. As we would see later too for all his major agitations, Gandhi
was always game for compromise, even if his demands were not fulfilled.
Perhaps, he always sought to ingratiate himself to the British, and remain in
their good books—that helped him perpetuate his leadership, and retain the
title of ‘Mahatma’.
The resounding success of the agitation made Patel a national hero. The
women of Bardoli bestowed the title ‘SARDAR’ (Chief or Leader) on
Patel.
What was noteworthy about the Bardoli Satyagraha was that it was the
first successful practical implementation of the Gandhian non-violent
technique involving the rural masses on the ground. What was even more
noteworthy was that it was not Gandhi who made that Gandhian technique
successful through the rural masses, but it was Sardar! Patel made people
cast off their fear, and turned every village into a citadel of resistance. He
inspired people to be courageous, self-reliant, sacrificing, resourceful, self-
organising, united, patient, and fearless, and ready to face difficulties.
Mahadev Desai had commented that Vallabhbhai, ‘who had in him the
blood of generations of peasants’, could organize the Bardoli populace ‘in a
form in which (Gandhi) could have never done’. Unlike the Mahatma he
spoke the language of the soil and as a Patidar he belonged to the
community that comprised the satyagraha’s backbone.{RG/158-9}
Wired Subhas Chandra Bose to Patel: “All India rejoices with you on
glorious victory. All honour to satyagrahis and their leader.”{BK/134}
FEB-1928 : SIMON COMMISSION
The Mont-Ford Reforms of 1918 and the GoI Act of 1919 had
envisaged their review after 10 years. Accordingly, the Simon Commission,
under the chairmanship of Sir John Simon, was set up in 1928. It comprised
seven British Members of Parliament of the UK, including the Labour
leader Clement Attlee (1883-1967) who was subsequently the British Prime
Minister between 1945 and 1951. The Commission was tasked with
reporting India's constitutional progress, and for suggesting further
constitutional reforms.
Outraged at the exclusion of Indians from the Commission that was to
determine India’s constitutional future, the Indian National Congress (INC),
at its December 1927 meeting in Madras, resolved to boycott the
Commission.
The Simon Commission, upon its arrival in Bombay on 3 February
1928, was greeted with strikes, protests and black flags. The protests were
repeated in each major city the Commission visited, accompanied by the
slogan “Simon go back!”
A faction of Muslim League, Hindus and Sikhs, however, cooperated
with the Commission. An All-India Committee for Cooperation with the
Simon Commission was established.
The Commission’s two-volume report published in May 1930 proposed,
inter alia, abolition of diarchy and the establishment of representative
government in the provinces; retention of separate communal electorates
until tensions between Hindus and Muslims dies down. The Simon
Commission ultimately led to the Government of India Act 1935, which
established representative government at the provincial level; and is the
basis of many parts of the current Indian Constitution. In accordance with
the GoI Act 1935, the first elections were held in the Provinces in 1937 that
brought Congress Governments in most of the Provinces.
AUG-1928: MOTILAL NEHRU REPORT
Incidentally, on 10 August 1928, much ahead of the release of the
Simon Commission's report, Motilal Nehru and his group came out with
their Nehru Report to establish that Indians could arrive at a consensus, and
could write their own constitution. The report outlined a new dominion
status constitution for India within the British Commonwealth, and
provided for internal self-government. Most of the Muslim League leaders,
including Jinnah, rejected the proposals.
In the annual Congress session at Calcutta in 1928, while most leaders
were fine with the dominion status for the time being, some were in favour
of complete swaraj. As a middle way, Gandhi proposed that a period of two
years be given to Britain to concede to the proposals in the Nehru Report
and the dominion status; and if those were not granted, the Congress would
fight and settle only for complete independence.
It is worth noting that the British policy, formally stated in the
Government of India Act 1919, had been that the nature of the Indian
constitution was something that had to be decided by the British parliament
exclusively, including when what reforms or changes had to be done; and
that Indians could be consulted where deemed appropriate. The British
conceded the right of Indians to frame their own constitution only via
Cripps Declaration in 1942.
17 November 1928 : Lala Lajpat Rai Martyred
The protests against the Simon Commission at Lahore on 30 October
1928 were led by Lala Lajpat Rai. There was a lathi-charge, and the police
singled out Lala Lajpat Rai for brutal treatment, leading to his untimely,
unfortunate death on 17 November 1928.
1929–30: NEHRU’S UNJUST ANOINTMENT AS CONGRESS PRESIDENT
Sardar Patel deserved to become the Congress President in 1929. He had
led the Bardoli Satyagraha (please see details above) of 1928 whose
resounding success had made him a national hero, and had earned him the
title Sardar. The Bardoli Satyagraha was the first successful practical
implementation of the Gandhian non-violent technique involving the rural
masses on the ground. Nehru lacked such credentials. He didn’t have any
significant practical achievements to his credit—he was more of a talker.
Besides, Sardar Patel was much senior to Jawaharlal, and a larger number
of PCCs (Pradesh Congress Committees: legal bodies to choose Congress
President) had recommended him for the Presidentship over Jawaharlal.
Yet, Gandhi asked Patel to withdraw! Gandhi thereby tried to establish an
unjust pecking order where Jawaharlal came before Patel. Netaji Subhas
Bose had subsequently written: “The general feeling in Congress circles
was that the honour should go to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel.”
Jawaharlal’s father Motilal had a major role to play in Jawaharlal’s
undeserved elevation. Motilal was the Congress President in 1928. He
desired that his position should be inherited by his son. Subsequent to
Patel’s Bardoli win, Motilal wrote to Gandhi on 11 July 1928: “I am quite
clear that the hero of the hour is Vallabhbhai, and the least we can do is to
offer him the crown [make him President of the Congress]. Failing him, I
think that under all the circumstances Jawahar would be the best choice.”
Motilal actively canvassed for Jawaharlal with Gandhi.
The presidentship of the Congress in 1929-30 was particularly important
for several reasons. It was implied that the person who became president
was likely to be Gandhi’s successor. He was also to declare the goal of the
Congress as “purn swaraj” or “complete independence”.
Congress presidentship used to be for one year, and rarely was anyone
given two terms. However, Jawaharlal was granted a second consecutive
term in 1930, thanks to Gandhi!
26 JANUARY 1930 : CONGRESS CALL FOR “PURNA SWARAJ”
The ‘Purna Swaraj Declaration’, or the ‘Declaration of the
Independence of India’, was promulgated by the Indian National Congress
on 26 January 1930. The flag of India was hoisted at midnight on 31
December 1929 on the banks of the Ravi river at Lahore by Jawaharlal
Nehru, who, overriding the much-deserving Sardar Patel (considering
Sardar’s suitability, seniority and the Bardoli triumph), had been unjustly
anointed the Congress President by Gandhi, “inheriting” that post from his
father Motilal!
The Declaration of Independence was officially promulgated on 26
January 1930; and the Congress called upon Indians to observe 26 January
as the Independence Day. Although with the transfer of power to Indians by
the British on 15 August 1947, 15 August became the official Independence
Day. The new Constitution of India declaring India as a republic took effect
on 26 January 1950, making 26 January the Republic Day.
But, why was the call given so late—in 1930? The move had been
resisted by Gandhi for over a decade, but under pressure from the Young
Turks in the Congress, and looking to the sacrifice of the revolutionaries
(arrest and on-going cases of Bhagat Singh and others) and their growing
popularity, the declaration was made lest the Congress be seen in dim light.
Curiously, in Gandhi’s subsequent (about two months later) Dandi March
and Salt Satyagraha of March 1930, and the Civil Disobedience Movement
that followed, there was NO demand of ‘Purna Swaraj’ from the British!
1930: CV Raman gets Nobel
CV Raman (7 Nov 1888–21 Nov 1970) was awarded the Nobel Prize in
Physics in 1930 for his work ‘Raman Effect’ on light scattering. He was
awarded Bharat Ratna in 1954.
18 April 1930 : Surya Sen & Chittagong Armoury Raid
Surya Sen led revolutionaries carried out the famous Chittagong
Armoury Raid. Please see details under ‘Notable Personalities/
Revolutionaries/ Surya Sen’ above.
1928–31 : LAHORE CONSPIRACY CASE, ETC.
17 December 1928: Saunders’ killing
The death of Lala Lajpat Rai (please see above) in the brutal police
lathi-charge was avenged by Shahid Bhagat Singh, Rajguru, Jai Gopal and
Sukhdev by killing Assistant Superintendent of Police JP Saunders in
Lahore on 17 December 1928.
8 April 1929: Assembly Bombing
On 8 April 1929, Bhagat Singh and Batukeshwar Dutt threw a bomb at
the government benches in the Central Legislative Assembly in Delhi, and
raised slogans. There were no casualties—none were intended. As the
smoke from the bombs had filled the Assembly, they could have escaped in
the confusion had they so wished. Instead, they stayed shouting the slogan
“Inquilab Zindabad!”, and threw leaflets. Both surrendered. Bhagat Singh
was awarded life sentence.
1929: Further Arrests
The bomb factories in Lahore and Saharanpur set up by HSRA (pl. see
details above under ‘Revolutionary Groups’) were discovered in 1929, and
many more members of HSRA including Sukhdev, Kishori Lal, Rajguru,
and Jai Gopal were arrested. Saunders murder case was re-opened based on
substantial evidence, and statements by their associates, Hans Raj Vohra
and Jai Gopal.
Jun-Oct 1929 : Memorable Hunger Strike by Revolutionaries
Bhagat Singh, Rajguru, Sukhdev, and many others were earlier arrested
for the main Second Lahore Conspiracy Case. They all were in Central Jail
Mianwali in Lahore. Jatin Das was arrested and jailed in Lahore on 14 June
1929 under the Supplementary Second Lahore Conspiracy Case.
The conditions of Indian prisoners in jails was terrible: their uniforms
were not washed for several days; rats and cockroaches roamed their
kitchen area; reading and writing materials were not provided to them. That
was in sharp contrast to the British prisoners, and the top Gandhians, who
were treated very well in jails. Additionally, being political prisoners, they
expected to be treated like one, rather than as common criminals. They
demanded equality with the jailed Europeans in food standards, clothing,
toiletries, and other hygienic necessities, as well as access to books and a
daily newspapers. Unlike for the top Gandhians (who had a relatively good
time in jails reading and writing books and articles, and experimenting with
nutrition), the British refused classification of Bhagat Singh and group as
“political prisoners”. They also protested against their subjection to forced
manual labour. To force the issue they began hunger strike. The strike
gained wide popularity across the nation, with the media popularising it.
The jail authorities tried enticing those on hunger strike with delicious food,
and when that failed, with force-feeding.
Viceroy Lord Irwin advanced the date of the Saunders Murder Trial that
came to be known as the Second Lahore Conspiracy Case. Bhagat Singh
and 27 others were tried. Bhagat Singh, still on hunger strike, had to be
carried to the court handcuffed on a stretcher.
Incidentally, responding to appeals, Bhagat Singh finally ended his
hunger strike on 5 October 1929 after an unimaginably overlong period of
over three months!
Jatin's Famous Fast & Martyrdom
The condition of the revolutionary Jatindra Nath Das (Jatin Das), who
was arrested on 14 June 1929 under the Supplementary Second Lahore
Conspiracy Case and who too had been on a hunger strike along with
Bhagat Singh and group, deteriorated and became critical. Jail authorities
recommended unconditional release, but the government refused. He was
martyred on 13 September 1929 in Lahore jail after a 63-day hunger strike.
Durga Bhabhi (Durgawati Devi, a revolutionary, and wife of another
revolutionary Bhagwati Charan Vohra) led his funeral procession from
Lahore to Calcutta by train, with thousands thronging the railway stations
on the way to pay homage to Jatin. His funeral procession in Kolkata was
about two-mile long.
Gandhi’s Convoluted Reaction
While everyone paid rich tributes to Jatin Das for his exemplary
sacrifice for a common cause through his hunger-strike, conspicuously, the
serial hunger-striker Gandhi, who one would have thought would surely
write glowingly about it, chose to keep silent; and in subtle ways, tried to
look down upon Jatin’s noble act, as would be clear from his following
letters:
Gandhi's letter of 22 September 1929 to Mahadev Desai: “…As yet I
cannot write anything about Jatin. I am not surprised that what may be
called our own circle fails to understand me. Personally, I have not the least
doubt regarding the correctness of my view. I see no good in this [Jatin’s]
agitation…” Gandhi's letter of 9 October 1929 to Raihana Tyabji: “…Now
about Jatin Das. I have been deliberately silent because I have not approved
of the fast…” Gandhi's letter of 18 October 1929 to Rajaji: “…I am wholly
against hunger-strikes for matters such as Wizia and Jatin died for... Do you
not agree with my judgment of the hunger-strikes and with my consequent
silence?...”
Did Gandhi feel jealous? 63 days of fast by Jatin! In comparison,
Gandhi’s longest fast was for only 21 days—one-third that of Jatin’s.
Also, anyone other than Gandhi running away with credit for a hunger-
strike for a good cause, that Gandhi felt was his patent and copyright,
deserved to be faulted on manufactured pretexts like “not moral”, or “not
the right cause”! Morally right, or the right causes were like Gandhi
coercing Dr Ambedkar into the Poona Pact through his fast unto death!!
There were other instances where Gandhi dissuaded a prospective hunger-
striker when he saw that it could bring in lots of publicity to the latter, and
instead proposed that at an opportune moment he [Gandhi] himself would
undertake the trouble to force the issue! The problem with labels like
‘Mahatma’ is that they allow even selfishness, cleverness and jealousies to
be cloaked in sophistry and convolution.
February 1931 : Azad Met Nehru
Chandrashekhar Azad met Nehru secretly at Nehru’s residence ‘Anand
Bhavan’ at Allahabad to know if Gandhi and the Congress would do
something in the ongoing Gandhi-Irwin talks to save Bhagat Singh, Rajguru
and Sukhdev from gallows. However, Nehru-Gandhi did nothing.
27 February 1931 : Chandrashekhar Azad Martyred
Chandrashekhar Azad shot himself with his last bullet at the Alfred Park
in Allahabad, after he was surrounded, and had valiantly defended himself
and his colleague. An informer had tipped the police. Incidentally, as
described above, Azad had met Nehru earlier at ‘Anand Bhavan’.
23 March 1931 : Bhagat Singh & Others Martyred
Bhagat Singh had become famous all over India as the Second Lahore
Conspiracy Case against him and others progressed. On 7 October 1930,
the tribunal delivered its judgement. Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev, and Rajguru
were sentenced to be hanged. Kundan Lal and Prem Dutt received rigorous
imprisonment of 7 and 5 years respectively. Kishori Lal, Mahabir Singh,
Bijoy Kumar Sinha, Shiv Verma, Gaya Prashad, Jai Dev and Kamalnath
Tewari were sentenced to transportation for life. Ajoy Ghosh, Jatindra Nath
Sanyal and Des Raj were acquitted.
On 23 March 1931, Shahid Bhagat Singh, Raj Guru and Sukhdev were
executed by the British.
No Effort by Gandhi or Congress to Save Bhagat Singh & Co.
It was unfortunate that despite requests to make saving of Shahid Bhagat
Singh and others a condition in the on-going negotiations between Gandhi
and Viceroy Irwin, the Gandhi–Irwin Pact signed on 5 March 1931
remained silent on the matter, and Gandhi and the Congress did effectively
precious little to save the braves. There were no demonstrations, no hartals,
no satyagraha and no fasts organised by the Congress Party or Gandhi.
Revolutionary Sukhdev, who had not pleaded for himself and his
colleagues, wrote an open letter to Gandhi after the Gandhi-Irwin Pact: “…
Since your compromise (Gandhi-Irwin pact) you have called off your
movement and consequently all of your prisoners have been released. But,
what about the revolutionary prisoners? Dozens of Ghadar Party prisoners
imprisoned since 1915 are still rotting in jails; in spite of having undergone
the full terms of their imprisonments, scores of martial law prisoners are
still buried in these living tombs, and so are dozens of Babbar Akali
prisoners. Deogarh, Kakori, Machhua Bazar and Lahore Conspiracy Case
prisoners are amongst those numerous still locked behind bars. More than
half a dozen conspiracy trials are going on at Lahore, Delhi, Chittagong,
Bombay, Calcutta and elsewhere. Dozens of revolutionaries are absconding
and amongst them are many females. More than half a dozen prisoners are
actually waiting for their executions. What about all of these people? The
three Lahore Conspiracy Case condemned prisoner (Bhagat Singh,
Sukhdev, Rajguru), who have luckily come into prominence and who have
acquired enormous public sympathy, do not form the bulk of the
revolutionary party. Their fate is not the only consideration before the party.
As a matter of fact their executions are expected to do greater good than the
commutation of their sentences…”{URL60}
The above letter had no effect on Gandhi.
The British India Viceroy Lord Irwin recorded in his notes dated 19
March 1931: “While returning Gandhiji asked me if he could talk about the
case of Bhagat Singh, because newspapers had come out with the news of
his slated hanging on March 24th. It would be a very unfortunate day
because on that day the new president of the Congress had to reach Karachi
and there would be a lot of hot discussion. I explained to him that I had
given a very careful thought to it but I did not find any basis to convince
myself to commute the sentence. It appeared he found my reasoning
weighty.”
From the above it appears Gandhi was bothered more about the
embarrassment that would be faced by the Congress with Bhagat Singh’s
hanging than by the hanging itself.
The British “justice” system could allow the British mass-murderer of
Jallianwala Bagh to get away scot free, and the British could even
generously reward him for that brutality; but people like Bhagat Singh who
protested against those brutal acts deserved to be hanged; and Gandhi’s
abstruse artefact (was it deliberately abstruse to allow for self-serving
flexibility!) of “non-violence” was comfortable with such a position!
The executions took place on the eve of the annual convention of the
Congress party at Karachi; and Gandhi faced black flag demonstrations by
angry youths who shouted “Down with Gandhi!”
Thanks to his daring and commitment to free India, by the time Bhagat
Singh was hanged in 1931, he had become highly popular all over India,
and had risen in political stature to a level higher than all other leaders in
India. Bhagat Singh Day was observed throughout Punjab on 17 February
1931. In states as far away as Assam and Andhra Pradesh, innumerable folk
songs grew about him; and rural craft works celebrating his bravery became
popular.
Gandhi’s Comments on Bhagat Singh
Gandhi wrote in Young India the following after Bhagat Singh’s
martyrdom: “This mad worship of Bhagat Singh has done and is doing
incalculable harm to the country. Caution has been thrown to the winds, and
the deed of murder is being worshipped as if it was worthy of emulation.
The result is brigandage and degradation.”
Apparently, Gandhi could not stomach Bhagat Singh’s popularity. He
only wanted himself to be revered, and his words and opinions taken as
gospel truth!
1930: Congress Call for “Purna Swaraj”
It is worth noting that the Congress called for full independence only as
late as 1930! The flag of India was hoisted at midnight on 31 December
1929 on the banks of the Ravi river at Lahore by Jawaharlal Nehru.
The Purna Swaraj Declaration, or the Declaration of the Independence
of India, was promulgated by the Indian National Congress on 26 January
1930; and the Congress called upon Indians to observe 26 January as the
Independence Day. Although with the transfer of power to Indians by the
British on 15 August 1947, 15 August became the official Independence
Day. The new Constitution of India declaring India as a republic took effect
on 26 January 1950, making 26 January the Republic Day.
1930–34
1930: DANDI MARCH & SALT SATYAGRAHA
Please check next chapter.
1930: QISSA KHWANI BAZAAR MASSACRE & GARHWALI
The Khudai Khidmatgar (Servants of God), led by Frontier (Seemant)
Gandhi Abdul Ghaffar Khan, was a Pashtun organisation committed to
overthrowing the British rule through non-violent methods. On 23 April
1930, Ghaffar Khan was arrested after a speech urging resistance to the
foreign rule. After more Khudai Khidmatgar leaders were arrested, a large
number of Khudai Khidmatgar members gathered at Qissa Khwani Bazaar
(also called Kissa-Khani or Story-tellers bazaar) bazaar in Peshawar to
protest.
A few British armoured cars speeded into the bazaar killing several. The
gathered members protested, though peacefully, and offered to disperse if
they could gather their dead and injured, and if the British troops left the
square—which the British troops refused.
Deciding to disperse the mob, the British Commanding Officer ordered
the 2/18 Garhwal Regiment to fire. But to his utter surprise, the Garhwalis,
known otherwise for their loyalty to the Raj, defied the authority, refused to
fire, and argued that they would not fire upon the unarmed civilians. This
infuriated the British official to the extent that he immediately fired upon
the Jamadar (a petty official) of the Garhwali regiment. The bullet missed
its target and hit his horse which died on the spot.
The Garhwalis were disarmed, arrested and sent to Abbottabad. Later
on, 17 of them were court-martialled in Bombay and sentenced to various
terms of harsh imprisonment. Chander Singh Garhwali, the group leader,
was sentenced to transportation for life; Narain Singh, for 15 years, and the
rest, 15 in number, were given 3 to 10 years of rigorous imprisonment.
Thanks to the post-independence Nehru-Gandhi Dynasty era that laid the
concrete foundations of India’s misery, brave Chander Singh Garhwali
remained neglected and forgotten till his death—he actually deserved a
Bharat Ratna. Belatedly, a postage stamp was released in his honour in
1994.
The British, after withdrawing the Garhwal Rifles, brought-in alternate
force (City Disturbance Column), and ordered troops to open fire with
machine guns on the unarmed crowd. The Khudai Khidmatgar members
willingly faced bullets, responding without violence. Many were killed and
wounded. The British violence continued for six hours turning the bazaar
red with blood.
According to the Government-appointed the Sulaiman-Pankridge
Enquiry Committee, 33 were killed and 33 wounded, but this was not the
final figure, according to the same report. The Congress Inquiry Committee
chaired by Vithalbhai Patel put the figures between 200 and 300 killed, and
many more wounded.
Gandhi’s Shameful Stand
Now comes the interesting, or rather the baffling, part. One would have
expected Gandhi to congratulate Garhwal Rifles and Chander Singh
Garhwali, their group leader, for refusing to fire into the non-violent
unarmed protestors. But, no. Gandhi, instead, argued: “A soldier who
disobeys an order to fire breaks the oath which he has taken and renders
himself guilty of criminal disobedience.” In sharp contrast, the same
Gandhi, in the 1942-Quit India specifically called upon the soldiers to
“refuse to fire on our own people.” AK Hangal, the late actor, was witness
to the above ghastly massacre, as a school student then in Peshawar. He
wrote in his autobiography ‘Life and Times of AK Hangal’: “Strangely,
Gandhi had opined that Garhwali should have actually obeyed orders and
fired, as a disciplined soldier. I could never understand this line of
reasoning.”
If only someone had countered Gandhi asking what exactly was the
“Disobedience Movement” that he had been championing? Asking
government and other employees to engage in civil disobedience—was it
not asking them to go against their oath of office? Breaking law—was it not
unlawful?
Gandhi, the Hindu-Muslim unity advocate, even ignored the fact that the
Garhwal Rifles comprised all Hindu soldiers, while the protestors were all
Muslims. The Hindus, the Garhwali soldiers, at considerable risk to
themselves, had saved many Muslims from death and injuries.
1930–31: FIRST ROUND TABLE CONFERENCE (RTC-1)
As per the recommendations of the Simon Commission Report of May
1930, three Round Table Conferences were organized by the British
Government during 1930–32 to discuss the constitutional reforms in India.
The First Round Table Conference was held between November 1930 and
January 1931; the Second Round Table Conference during September–
December 1931; and the Third Round Table Conference during November–
December 1932.
The First Round Table Conference was inaugurated in London on 12
November 1930 by the Viceroy of India Lord Irwin, and was chaired by the
British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald. The participants were: 16
delegates from the 3 British political parties; 16 delegates from the Princely
States; and 57 Indians from various political parties, and sections, including
the Muslim League (Aga Khan III as their leader), the Hindu Mahasabha
(BS Moonje and MR Jaykar), the Indian Liberal Party (Tej Bahadur Sapru,
CY Chintamani and Srinivasa Sastri), the Sikhs represented by Sardar Ujjal
Singh, and the Depressed Classes represented by Dr BR Ambedkar. The
Indian National Congress was not represented as many of its leaders were
in jail for the Salt Satyagraha.
Wide-ranging matters relating to the Federal Structure, Provincial
Constitution, Minorities, Defence, Burma, NWFP, Sindh, and so on were
discussed. The idea of an All-India Federation was accepted, as the Muslim
League always opposed a strong Centre, where it would be in a minority. A
separate electorate for the Depressed Classes as demanded by Dr BR
Ambedkar was also considered. However, in the absence of the Congress
there could not be much progress. The Conference ended on 19 January
1931.
10 February 1931: The New Capital New Delhi Inaugurated
New Delhi was inaugurated by the Viceroy Lord Irwin on 10 February
1931 as the new capital.
1931: GANDHI-IRWIN PACT
Please check next chapter.
MAR-1931: SARDAR AS CONGRESS PRESIDENT
The AICC session at Karachi was held in March 1931, at which Sardar
Patel was appointed the President of the Congress (a tenure of one year) for
the first (and only) time.
Gandhi faced a hostile climate at the Karachi Congress on account of his
failure to save Shahid Bhagat Singh and associates. Notable at the Karachi
Congress was the presence of Abdul Ghaffar Khan (who came to be known
as the Frontier Gandhi) from NWFP, and his Khudai Khidmatgars (God’s
Servants), popularly called Redshirts, on account of the brick-red colour of
their shirt.
Patel established a landmark at the session by insisting that its
proceedings be conducted in Hindi, the country’s proposed national
language after independence. The Indianisation was initiated by Gandhi and
Patel in the Ahmedabad Congress of 1921.
At the Karachi Congress Patel established himself as the party’s boss.
Wrote William Shirer, a US journalist who covered the session: “There was
one figure in Karachi, little known in the West but a power in India… Next
to Gandhi, it was Vallabhbhai Patel, India’s nearest thing to an old
Tammany Hall boss, who ran the convention… it had been Patel, a bald-
headed, walrus-moustached, tough-minded, pragmatic, peasant lawyer, who
built up the Congress to a formidable national political party, the only one
there was in India. He was the boss of the machine.”{Shir}{BK/157}
SEP–DEC 1931: SECOND ROUND TABLE CONFERENCE (RTC-2)
The Second Round Table Conference (RTC) held during September–
December 1931 (7 September 1931 to 1 December 1931) was also attended
by the Congress, after the Gandhi-Irwin Pact that ended the Salt Satyagraha.
There were so many varied issues to be discussed—too much for anyone
person to handle. The Congress could not represent itself in many
committees and sub-groups, as Gandhi was the only representative, who
also happened to be busy in public relations, earning international publicity
for himself. Although the Congress could have (and should have) sent 20
delegates to the Conference (the Muslim League had 16 delegates), Gandhi
chose to be the sole official representative. Why? Let all regard you as a
selfless Mahatma, but be careful and wise to protect your turf, and engage
in blatant self-promotion. Publicity and projection only for self. Don’t let
competition grow. Be the sole representative and spokesperson for the
Congress, and even India. All-knowing! Wisest!
Wrote Stanley Wolpert: “…Gandhi embarked for London as sole
representative of the Congress… the Mahatma refused to allow any of his
colleagues to share his London limelight.”{Wolp/127} Viceroy Willingdon had
written to PM Ramsay MacDonald: “He is a curious little devil—always
working for an advantage. In all his actions I see the ‘bania’ predominating
over the saint.”{Wolp/127}
Gandhi was so high on his Gandhi-Irwin Pact ‘achievement’ that the
saint went to extent of being petty in being contemptuously dismissive of
the whole non-Congress delegation, saying they didn’t represent the
masses.
During the Conference, Gandhi contended that the Congress alone
represented political India; that there should be no separate electorates or
special safeguards for Muslims or other minorities; and that the Depressed
classes, being part of Hindus, could not be treated as a “minority”.
However, the other participants like the Muslim League and Dr BR
Ambedkar dismissed Gandhi’s contention.
At the end of the conference the British government undertook to
produce a Communal Award for minority representation, with the provision
that any free agreement between the parties could be substituted for the
award.
Gandhi returned to India virtually empty-handed. Go alone. Let not the
lights and camera shine upon anyone else. Achieve nothing for the
Congress and India; and come back, but continue to remain the apex leader!
1932: CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE MOVEMENT (CDM), PHASE-II
Please check next chapter.
AUG–1932: THE COMMUNAL AWARD
The British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald made the ‘Communal
Award’ on 16 August 1932 granting separate electorates in British India for
the Forward Caste, Lower Caste, Muslims, Buddhists, Sikhs, Indian
Christians, Anglo-Indians, Europeans, and Depressed Classes (Dalits).
Depressed Classes were assigned a number of seats to be filled by election
from special constituencies in which voters belonging to the Depressed
Classes only could vote.
The Akali Dal was critical of the Award as it provided for only 19%
reservation to the Sikhs in Punjab compared to 51% for the Muslims and
30% for the Hindus.
The Award was also unfair to Bengali Hindus, but Gandhi took no
objection to the same. Hindus were under-represented vis-à-vis Muslims,
making it impossible for the Hindus to ever come into power
democratically. Although Hindus comprised almost half (44.8%) of the total
population of united Bengal, they were assigned only 32% (80) of the total
legislative seats (250).
Notably, Maulana Azad and other Muslim leaders enthusiastically
approved of the Communal Award, as it was loaded in favour of the
Muslims. However, Madan Mohan Malviya and his colleagues wanted the
Congress to disown the Communal Award; and when the Patna AICC on 16
May 1934 (attended also by Gandhi) expressed merely its neutrality on it,
they resigned from the Congress.
However nationalist Muslim leader MC Chagla had this to say:
“I also took an active part in denouncing the Communal Award
given by Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, then Prime Minister of England.
Muslim and Hindu representatives had failed to come to a
settlement at the [Third] Round Table Conference in London [in
1932], and Mr. MacDonald gratuitously took upon himself the
burden and the responsibility of giving an award which he thought
would be fair to both the communities, and which should therefore
be accepted by them. I pleaded for a swadeshi award and not an
award which had upon it the imprint ‘Made in England’. I posed the
question ‘What would you think of an arbitrator before whom, say
X and Y appear, and the arbitrator says: I think the claim of X is
unsustainable in principle, but because he insists, I must allow it.’ If
you look at the covering letter of Mr. MacDonald, this, in effect, is
what he says: ‘Separate electorates are vicious and bad for the
country, but the Mussalmans are so determined to have them that
they must get them. Now not only that. I will extend separate
electorates, bad as they are, out of the generosity of my heart, to
communities who have never asked for them.’ On this alone any
impartial tribunal in the world would set aside this award as an error
apparent on the face of the record, or even on grounds of legal
misconduct on the part of the arbitrator.”{MCC/101}
AUG–SEP 1932: THE COMMUNAL AWARD & POONA PACT
BR Ambedkar strongly supported the Communal Award for the
Depressed Classes, but Gandhi went on an indefinite fast from 20
September 1932 against the same at the Yerwada jail where he was lodged,
even though Gandhi was a willing signatory to the requisition by the
members of the Minorities Committee to the British Premier empowering
the Premier to finally decide on the matter. Gandhi opposed it on the
grounds that it would disintegrate Hindu society; and was effectively an
attack on the Indian unity and nationalism. Treatment of depressed classes
as a separate political entity would lead to the untouchables remaining
untouchables in perpetuity, and the question of abolishing untouchability
would get undermined. What was needed was rooting out of untouchability.
As if much was being done in that direction—beyond tokenism!
In response to Gandhi’s letter threatening fast British Premier Ramsay
MacDonald was in his element:
“As I understand your attitude, you propose to adopt the extreme
course of starving yourself to death not in order to secure that the
depressed classes should have joint electorates with other Hindus,
because that is already provided, not to maintain the unity of
Hindus, which is also provided, but solely to prevent the depressed
classes, who admittedly suffer from terrible disabilities today, from
being able to secure a limited number of representatives of their
own choosing to speak on their behalf in the legislatures which will
have a dominating influence on their future.”{Nan/340}
To save Gandhi’s life, a number of leaders—including Rajaji, Rajendra
Prasad, Madan Mohan Malaviya, Rabindranath Tagore, Tej Bahadur Sapru
—were jolted into action against the prevailing orthodoxy. A call was given
to open temples to the untouchables; and an ‘Untouchability Abolition
League’ was formed. Tremendous pressure was brought upon Ambedkar to
give up on the separate electorate. Letters threatening his life cascaded upon
him. A section turned abusive. Leaders from all over India rushed to
Bombay and Pune to pressurise Ambedkar, and make Gandhi give up his
fast.
Responded Ambedkar:
“To save Gandhi’s life I would not be a party to any proposal
that would be against the interests of my people…”
Ambedkar later said:
“It has fallen to my lot to be the villain of the piece. But I tell
you I shall not deter from my pious duty, and betray the just and
legitimate interests of my people even if you hang me on the nearest
lamp-post… You better appeal to Gandhi to postpone his fast about
a week and then seek for the solution of the problem…”{DK/209}
It was indeed shocking that the Congress and other leaders who had
otherwise remained indifferent to the plight of the untouchables, or had kept
the issue at a low priority, should have been forced to act only under threat
of a separate electorate of Ambedkar! The great freedom fighters, including
Gandhi, seemed to have cared little for the freedom of the depressed
classes. Even now, in 2017, their status leaves a lot to be desired. Shows
that there were fundamental defects in the way the freedom struggle was
executed; and those defects have persisted post-independence too. Nehru
dynasty—Jawaharlal, Indira, Rajiv, Sonia-Rahul—has been a huge failure
on that score, having ruled for most of the post-independence period, not
that others can be absolved.
Finally, Gandhi negotiated an agreement with Dr BR Ambedkar—the
Poona Pact—on 24 September 1932 to have a single Hindu electorate, with
Untouchables having seats reserved within it. The Poona Pact was accepted
by the British Government as an amendment to the Communal Award.
While the British Communal Award provided for the depressed classes
(a) 71 reserved seats to be filled by persons belonging to the Untouchables
by election from special constituencies in which voters belonging to the
depressed classes alone could vote; and (b) double vote, one to be used
through separate electorates only for the depressed classes and the other to
be used in the general electorates; the Poona Pact (a) abandoned separate
electorates for the depressed classes, (b) more than doubled the reserved
seats for the depressed classes from 71 to 147 in provincial legislatures, and
(c) provided for 18% of the total seats for the depressed classes in the
central legislature.
Dr Ambedkar had, however, made it very clear that the Poona Pact was
accepted only because of Gandhiji’s “coercive fast”. Ambedkar was afraid
that if something happened to Gandhi on account of the fast, mobs might
take revenge on Dalits all over India—there could be pogroms directed
against Dalits and a massacre—and he didn’t wish to take such a big risk.
Ambedkar was not happy about the Poona Pact, and had commented:
“If the Poona Pact increased the fixed quota of seats it also took
away the right to the Dual Vote (double vote). The increase in seats
can never be deemed to be a compensation for the loss of double
vote. The second vote given by the communal award was a priceless
privilege. Its value as a political weapon was beyond reckoning.
{Amb6/950} …There was nothing noble in the [Gandhi’s] fast. It was a
foul and filthy act. The fast was not for the benefit of the
Untouchables. It was against them and was the worst form of
coercion against a helpless people to give up the constitutional
safeguards [which had been awarded to them].”{Amb6/4397}
In an interview to BBC in New Delhi in 1955, Dr Ambedkar had said:
“First of all my contention was this that for five years [election periodicity]
we [Dalits] live separately from the Hindus with no kind of intercourse or
intercommunication, of a social or a spiritual sort. What can one day’s cycle
of participation in a common electorate do to remove this hard and crushed
[feeling of] separatism which has grown for centuries...it is a foolish thing
to think that ‘If two people vote together in a common polling booth that
their hearts are going to change...nothing of that kind [will happen]’”.
It is interesting that in pursuance of the call for equal treatment of
untouchables a bill was introduced in the Central Assembly enabling
temple-entry of untouchables provided a majority of its devotees were
agreeable! Can one call it a reform! What if the majority did not agree?
And, was it a great concession to allow temple-entry?! Ambedkar had
rightly declared that untouchables didn’t care for temple-entry.
That the top leaders of the freedom movement were so orthodox and
narrow-minded, and their liberal standards were so pathetically poor in this
regard amazes you. When Gandhi declared his intent to bring out a new
weekly journal, Harijan, with a view to social reform, many leaders,
including Jawaharlal Nehru (but NOT Sardar Patel), felt perturbed at
Gandhi’s move, which they felt would be at the expense of the national
struggle for freedom! Such was the extent of “enlightened” thinking of
people like Nehru!! Many leaders had felt that the temple-entry move was
ill-advised as it would be unpopular. Such a stand effectively amounted to
this: Let the gross injustice of centuries continue. A movement against it
would adversely affect the movement of freedom from the British. Why?
The freedom-movement was driven by caste-Hindus, and they should not
get annoyed! Depressed classes could be ignored. No wonder, given such a
quality of leadership, the Depressed classes continued to be treated shabbily
even after independence.
Earlier, before the Communal Award and the Poona Pact, Gandhi had
stated in the Minorities Committee: “I would like to repeat what I have said
before, that, while the Congress will accept any solution that may be
acceptable to the Hindus, the Mussalmans and the Sikhs, it will be no party
to special reservation or special electorates for any other Minorities.” That
is, even reservation of seats for the dalits (—what to speak of separate
electorates), which he accepted through the Poona Pact, was not acceptable
to him. His hands were actually forced by the British Communal Award,
and by Dr Ambedkar. Ambedkar said after the Poona Pact that if Gandhi
had been reasonable early on at the time of the Round Table Conferences,
things would not have come to such a pass.
1932: THIRD ROUND TABLE CONFERENCE (RTC-3)
The Third Round Table Conference was held in London between 17
November 1932 and 24 December 1932. The Muslim League (Muhammad
Ali, Agha Khan, Fazlul Haq, Jinnah, etc.) and others attended it. The British
Labour Party refused to attend it; and the Indian National Congress too
remained absent.
However, the RTC’s outcome was highly significant and path-breaking.
Its output was the White Paper issued by the Government, on the basis of
which the Government of India Act 1935 took shape under the supervision
of the Secretary of State for India, Sir Samuel Hoare. And, it is this act on
which the Indian Constitution of 1950 derives significantly.
1932–33: NAME ‘PAKISTAN’ & RAHMAT ALI [P]
At the time of the Third Round Table Conference held in London
between 17 November and 24 December 1932, attended, among others, by
Muhammad Ali, Agha Khan, Fazlul Haq, and Jinnah, Chaudhary Rahmat
Ali, a college student at Cambridge, proposed “Pakistan” as the name of the
new land to be carved out of India for the Muslims. In his pamphlet{CRA}
‘Now or Never: Are We to Live or Perish Forever?’ issued on 28 January
1933 Chaudhary Rahmat Ali constructed the word Pakistan as an
acronym: "P" for Punjab, "A" for Afghania representing Khyber
Pakhtunkhwa (NWFP), "K" for Kashmir, "S" for Sindh, and "stan", the
suffix, for Baluchistan (although the state then was then called Kalat). East
Bengal did not figure in this! East Bengal in the scheme of Pakistan was
added much later in 1940.
Of course, Pakistan is also a join of two Urdu words, "pak", which
means pure, or sacred, and "stan", which means a place, hence Pakistan
means a pure or a sacred place, or Land of the Pure; as opposed to the place
for the “napak”, that is, the “impure”, that is, Hindustan for Hindus—there
is no limit to being bigoted!
Rahmat Ali argued that India was neither a country nor a nation—its
heterogeneity was a fact, and that the Muslims were a separate nation. He
stated in his pamphlet: “We, therefore, deserve and must demand the
recognition of a separate national status by the grant of a separate Federal
Constitution from the rest of India… Our religion, culture, history, tradition,
economic system, laws of inheritance, succession and marriage are
basically and fundamentally different from those of the people living in the
rest of India. The ideals which move our thirty million brethren-in-faith
living in these provinces to make the highest sacrifices are fundamentally
different from those which inspire the Hindus. These differences are not
confined to the broad basic principles—far from it. They extend to the
minutest details of our lives. We do not inter-dine; we do not inter-marry.
Our national customs, calendars, even our diet and dress are different.”{CRA}
Rahmat Ali’s proposal was only circulated in the Round Table
Conference, it was not officially put forth. Some from the Muslim League
had privately sounded the British Government on the proposal, but it was
declined by the British, as they felt it might amount to revival of the old
Muslim Empire.
When Rahmat Ali was reminded that in his geographical definition of
Pakistan only about 40% Muslims lived, and that he would be jeopardising
the fate of the rest (almost 60%) of the Muslims who lived all over India as
minority of less than 10% of the population, he had, like Iqbal and other
Muslim leaders, no rational solution to offer. What they talked about was an
awful counter-balancing, reciprocal hostage situation: Hindu-minority as
hostage in future Pakistan vs. Muslim-minority as hostage in India! But,
what has been the actual situation after the creation of Pakistan? Hindu-
minority in Pakistan has dwindled to a micro-minority, and is an
unfortunate persecuted minority, thanks to the bigoted nature of Pakistan;
while the Muslim-minority in India has grown disproportionately high,
thanks to the in-built liberalism of Hinduism!
Rahmat Ali later included creation of two more Muslim countries in his
scheme: (a)Banga-i-Islam, comprising Bengal and Assam; and
(b)Usmanistan, comprising Deccan and Hyderabad.
1935–39
GOVERNMENT OF INDIA (GOI) ACT 1935
The British Parliament passed the Government of India Act in August
1935. The GoI Act 1935 introduced, inter alia, larger autonomy, direct
elections, reorganisation of provinces, provision for ‘Federation of India’
incorporating the British India and the Princely states, federal court,
establishment of RBI, etc.
Background for the GoI Act 1935 included the Mont-Fort Reforms of
1918, the GoI Act of 1919, the Simon Commission Report of 1928, the
First Round Table Conference (RTC-1) of November 1930, RTC-2 of Sep-
Dec 1931, the Communal Award of 1932, and the RTC-3 of Nov-Dec 1932.
The salient features of the Act were as follows:
(1) Grant of much larger autonomy to the provinces of British India.
However, the British Provincial Governors retained reserve powers, and a
right to suspend elected government.
(2) Introduction of direct elections, increasing the franchise from 7 to 35
million people. Provincial assemblies were to include more elected Indian
representatives. Those gaining majority could form elected governments.
(3) Partial reorganisation of the provinces: (a)Sindh separated from
Bombay; (b)Bihar and Orissa split into separate provinces.
(4)Burma completely separated from India.
(5) Provision for the establishment of a ‘Federation of India’
incorporating the British India and the Princely states. This could not be
given effect to as many Princely states were against it; and the Congress
desired Unitary, and not Federal, Government. The proposed federal
legislature was a bicameral body consisting of the Council of States (Upper
House) and the Federal Assembly (Lower House).
(6) It provided for the establishment of a Federal Court to adjudicate
inter-states disputes and matters concerning the interpretation of the
constitution.
(7) Establishment of Reserve Bank of India.
(8) Communal electorates as per the Act of 1919 were retained, and
further expanded.
(9) The supremacy of the British Parliament remained intact.
1934-37: ELECTIONS
Gandhi had taken a decision in 1934 not to boycott elections. Soon after
release from jail in July 1934, Patel devoted himself to 1934-elections to the
Central Legislative Assembly, playing the leading role in selecting and
financing candidates. He became the chairman of the party’s Central
Parliamentary Board, and also its main fund-raiser. He also guided the
Congress through the Provincial elections of 1936.
In the Central Legislative Assembly of 145, 41 seats were for the
nominated, unelected members, leaving 104 for elected members. Out of
that 104, 8 seats were reserved for Europeans, and 11 for landlords and
others, leaving a net of 85 seats. Out of them, in 1934, the Congress won 44
of the 49 general seats, and 17 of the reserved seats—a total of 61 out of a
possible maximum of 85, almost 72%. However, given 41
unelected/nominated seats, the Congress could not have a majority.
The British Parliament passed the Government of India Act in August
1935, which included, inter alia, further provisions for direct elections.
In the 1936-37 provincial elections in 11 provinces, the Congress won
an absolute majority in 5 (UP, Bihar, Madras, CP (Central Provinces) and
Orissa), and emerged as the largest party in 4 (Bombay, Bengal, Assam and
NWFP). The Congress ministries were formed in a total of 8 provinces.
They were headed (called Premiers) by Govind Ballabh Pant in UP,
Shrikrishna Sinha in Bihar, NB Khare in CP, BG Kher in Bombay, Rajaji in
Madras. Bishwanath Das in Orissa, Gopinath Bardoloi in Assam, and Dr
Khan Sahib in NWFP.
Overall, in the assembly (provincial) elections, the Congress had won
715 of 1585 seats—less than 50%—and it had polled about 94 lakh votes
against the total of all the opposition of about 110 lakh votes—again less
than 50%: as such, the Congress had no reason to be too arrogant! Jinnah’s
Muslim League won a total of 108 seats across India, including 20 of the 30
Muslim seats in the Bombay Assembly; and 27 seats in UP against 134 of
the Congress. Further, the Congress had contested only 58 of the 482
Muslim seats and won just 26—15 in NWFP, and only 11 in the rest of
India.
Result of Provincial Elections 1937
Province Total
Seats
General
Seats
Won by
Congress
Won by
Muslim
League
Won by
Other
Muslim
Groups
Won by
Others
Assam 108 40 35 9 25 39
Bengal 250 48 50 40 @ 77 83
Bihar 152 71 98 0 39 15
Bombay 175 99 88 20 9 58
CP* 112 64 71 0 14 27
Madras* 215 116 159 11 17 28
NWFP 50 9 19 0 31 0
Orissa 60 38 36 0 4 20
Punjab 175 34 18 1 # 83 73
Sind 60 18 7 0 36 17
UP* 228 120 134 27 37 30
Total 1585 657 715 108 372 390
*CP=Central Provinces, *UP=United Provinces
*Madras=Whole of South
@ Mostly Krishak Proja Party, #Mostly Unionist Party
Sources: {RPD/522} {MAK/40}
The Muslim League gave a poor showing. It secured less than 5% of the
Muslim votes. It won a mere 6% (108/1585) of total seats. Its share
(108/(372+108=480)) in the Muslim seats was also low: 22.5%. It failed to
form a government on its own in any province.
Described Ayesha Jalal: “But for Jinnah the results of the 1937 elections
proved another setback in a career marked more by snakes than by ladders.
In the Punjab, the Unionists swept the board; in Bengal, Jinnah and the
League had to accept a coalition led by Hug who did not acknowledge their
writ; in Sind they faced an independent ministry; and in the N.W.F.P., where
almost the entire population was Muslim, the worst humiliation of all, a
Congress ministry. In each of the [Muslim] majority provinces, Jinnah’s
strategy had been repudiated by the voters’ choice. In the Muslim-minority
provinces, where the League did best, the Congress did much better than
anyone had expected, and did not need the League’s help to form stable
ministries.”{Jal/35}
Rebuff to Jinnah by Nehru that proved costly.
Before the 1936-37 provincial elections, the Congress did not expect to
get enough seats to form a government on its own in UP. That was because
of the other parties in the fray who had strong backing of landlords and
influential sections. So as to be able to form a government, it had planned
for a suitable coalition with the Muslim League. So that the Muslim League
got enough seats for a coalition to be successful, Rafi Ahmad Kidwai of the
Congress (who had been private secretary of Motilal Nehru, and after his
death, a principal aide of Jawaharlal Nehru) had persuaded, jointly with
Nehru, several influential Muslims, like Khaliq-uz-Zaman (third in the
AIML hierarchy after Jinnah and Liaqat Ali Khan) and Nawab Mohammad
Ismail Khan, who had the potential to win, to fight the elections on behalf of
the Muslim League, as Muslims fighting on behalf of the Muslim League
had better chances of winning. They fought and won. But, after the
elections, when the Congress found it could form the government on its
own, without the help of the Muslim League, it began to put unreasonable
conditions.{DD/181-83}
To Jinnah’s proposal of inclusion of two Muslim League Ministers in
the UP cabinet, Nehru, who was the Congress President then, and was also
looking after the UP affairs, put forth an amazing, arrogant condition: the
League legislators must merge with the Congress! Specifically, the terms
sought to be imposed, inter alia, by Azad–Nehru were:
“The Muslim League group in the UP Legislature shall cease to
function as a separate group. The existing members of the Muslim
League party in the United Provinces Assembly shall become part
of the Congress Party… The Muslim League Parliamentary Board
in the United Provinces will be dissolved, and no candidates will
thereafter be set up by the said Board at any by-election…”{Shak/187}
The above humiliating condition that was the death warrant for the
League was naturally rejected by Jinnah.{Gill/179-80}
In Bombay, with the Congress Chief minister designate BG Kher willing
to induct one Muslim League minister in the cabinet in view of lack of
absolute majority of the Congress, and the fact that the Muslim League had
done well in Bombay in the Muslim pockets, Jinnah sent a letter in the
connection to Gandhi. Gandhi gave a strangely mystical and elliptically
negative reply to Jinnah on 22 May 1937:
“Mr. Kher has given me your message. I wish I could do
something, but I am utterly helpless. My faith in [Hindu-Muslim]
unity is as bright as ever; only I see no daylight out of the
impenetrable darkness and, in such distress, I cry out to God for
light...”{CWMG/Vol-71/277}
Jinnah then wanted to meet Gandhi; but Gandhi advised him to rather
meet Abul Kalam Azad, by whom he said he was guided in such matters.
Rebuffed and humiliated Jinnah then decided to show Congress-Nehru-
Gandhi their place. The incident led other Muslim leaders also to believe
that a majority Congress government would always tend to ride rough-shod
over the Muslim interests. It is claimed that, thanks to the above, the badly
hurt pride of the Muslims led them to move away from the Congress and
quickly gravitate towards the Muslim League, and ultimately to separation.
The incident actually proved a blessing-in-disguise for Jinnah and the
Muslim League for they realised their politics needed to be mass-based to
counter the Congress. Membership fee for the AIML was dramatically
dropped to just two-annas. There was a huge move to increase membership
among the Muslim masses, and it paid rich dividends: the membership
dramatically rose from a few thousand to well over half a million!
Jinnah told his followers that he had done enough of begging the
Congress in the past; he would see to it now that the Congress begged of
him.{RZ/70-71}
The humiliated Muslim League aspirants Khaliq-uz-Zaman and Nawab
Mohammad Ismail Khan whose ambitions were thwarted by the Congress
and Nehru thereafter became the pillars of Muslim reaction and played a
critical role in swinging the Muslim opinion in favour of partition and
Pakistan.
The British were only too glad at the development. The Secretary of
State Birkenhead wrote to the Viceroy: “I have placed my highest and most
permanent hopes in the eternity of the communal situation.”{MULD/42}
It was unwise of the Congress and Nehru not to show a little generosity
towards the League. Reportedly, Sardar Patel and GB Pant were willing for
a coalition with the Muslim League as per the pre-election understanding,
but Nehru, in his “wisdom” and hubris, decided to act arrogant, and led the
way for the ultimate parting of ways with Jinnah and the Muslim League,
and for Partition and Pakistan—Nehru was the Congress President in 1936
and 1937.
Jinnah’s bitter reaction on 26 July 1937 to Nehru’s unjust act was:
“What can I say to the busybody President [Nehru] of the
Congress? He [Nehru] seems to carry the responsibility of the whole
world on his shoulders and must poke his nose into everything
except minding his own business.”{DD/181-82}
The fissure caused by Nehru’s impetuosity was never healed.
There is an opinion that had the Congress been accommodating towards
the AIML post-1937 elections, AIML may not have hurtled forward
towards Partition and Pakistan. Perhaps. But, that appears too much of a
stretch. If one takes into account the pronouncements and actions of the
Muslim leaders across the spectrum since the time of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan
in the late nineteenth century, it is difficult to think of alternate results. And,
who knows the inducted Muslim League legislators might have worked to
wreck the working of the newly formed provincial governments under the
direction of Jinnah, like the Muslim members did in the Interim
Government at the Centre in 1946–47. But, still, surely the accommodation
by the Congress would have been a wiser move—it might have delivered
some positives. That possibility should have been exhausted. Besides, it
would have prevented counterfactual speculations.
Wrote Maulana Azad:
“...I have nevertheless to say with regret that this [Nehru’s goof-
up on Cabinet Mission Plan of 1946: pl. see elsewhere in this book]
was not the first time that he [Nehru] did immense harm to the
national cause. He had committed an almost equal blunder in 1937
when the first elections were held under the Government of India
Act [of 1935]{Azad/170}…
“Jawaharlal’s action gave the Muslim League in the UP a new
lease of life. All students of Indian politics know that it was from
the UP that the League was reorganised. Mr Jinnah took full
advantage of the situation and started an offensive which ultimately
led to Pakistan{Azad/171}…
“The [Nehru’s] mistake of 1937 was bad enough. The mistake of
1946 [of Nehru re: Cabinet Mission Plan] proved even more
costly.”{Azad/170-172}
Wrote MC Chagla:
“To my mind, one of the most potent causes which ultimately
led to the creation of Pakistan was what happened in Uttar Pradesh
[United Provinces in 1937]. If Jawaharlal Nehru had agreed to a
coalition ministry and not insisted on the representative of the
Muslim League signing the Congress pledge, perhaps Pakistan
would never have come about. I remember Jawaharlal telling me
that Khaliquz Zaman [to whom Nehru had denied a birth in the UP
cabinet in 1937] was one of his greatest and dearest friends, and yet
he led the agitation for Pakistan… Uttar Pradesh was the cultural
home of the Muslims. Although they were in a minority in the State,
if Uttar Pradesh had not gone over to the cause of separation,
Pakistan would never have become a reality.”{MCC/81-2}
JAN-1939: GANDHI VS. SUBHAS: PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION
Subhas Bose, who had been the Congress President for a year, desired
another one-year term at the end of 1938. Subhas felt the German threat to
Britain in the Second World War was an opportune time to exploit its
vulnerability and launch an all-out mass disobedience movement to kick out
the British. However, the Gandhian approach was to be generally soft
towards the British.
Gandhi didn’t favour a second term for Subhas. Subhas was adamant,
and a contest ensued: Subhas vs. Pattabhi Sitaramayya of Andhra PCC.
Sitaramayya was backed by Gandhi. Gandhi went to the unseemly extent of
asking Patel, Rajendra Prasad and several other CWC members to issue a
statement favouring Pattabhi Sitaramayya! Subhas rightly objected. He held
the senior leaders guilty of moral coercion, and pointed out it was unfair on
the part of the CWC members to take sides in an organized manner.
Despite the open support of Gandhi, and other senior leaders, Subhas
was re-elected by 1580 to 1375 votes on 29 January 1939.
Gandhi didn’t take the defeat gracefully. He began machinations to
somehow oust Subhas or make it difficult for him to function. In this,
Gandhi used his colleagues and followers. He made 12 of the 15 CWC
members resign from the CWC to make it difficult for Subhas to run the
organisation.
At the 52nd annual session of the Congress in March 1939 at Tripuri,
near Jabalpur, on the banks of Narmada, an unbelievably fantastic
resolution was passed calling upon the President [Subhas] “to appoint the
Working Committee in accordance with the wishes of [a person who was
not even a member of the Congress, having resigned from it long ago]
Mahatma Gandhi”!
Subhas was seriously unwell, but he attended the session on a stretcher.
He demanded that the Congress should deliver an ultimatum of a six
months to Britain and in the event of its rejection a country-wide struggle
for ‘Poorna Swaraj’ should be launched. However, his advice went
unheeded. His powers as President were sought to be curtailed through
various means, including the above resolution.
Refusing to implement the Tripuri directive, Subhas resigned in April
1939. He announced formation of the Forward Bloc within the Congress in
May 1939.
Although what was done to Subhas by Gandhi was obviously unjust and
immoral, from the national angle it was God-sent: perhaps God desired that
in the interest of India’s independence! Thanks to the injustice meted out to
Subhas, he took a radically independent path that ultimately led to India’s
independence.
1939–43
OCTOBER 1939 : ANTI-HINDU RIOTS IN SINDH [P]
Dr Choitram Gidwani, Vice President of the Sind Provincial Congress
Committee, telegrammed Gandhi in October 1939: “Riots, loot,
incendiarism in Sukkur district [Sindh] villages. Hindus mercilessly
butchered. Women and girls raped and kidnapped. Hindu life, property
unsafe. Situation most critical. Government policy not firm. Pray send
enquiry committee immediately to see situation personally…”
Gandhi's response, which can only be termed as irresponsible: “Now the
only effective way in which I can help the Sindhis (is) to show them the
way of non-violence. But that cannot be learnt in a day. The other way is
the way the world has followed hitherto, i.e. armed defence of the life and
property. God helps only those who help themselves. The Sindhis are no
exception. They must learn the art of defending themselves against robbers,
raiders and the like. If they do not feel safe and are too weak to defend
themselves, they should leave the place which has proved too inhospitable
to live in…” Why be a leader if you can’t come to the rescue of your
people? If you can’t train them to defend themselves? And, if you can’t set
up an organisation with wide-spread branches meant to defend people from
communal and other acts of violence.
WW-II: BRITISH DECLARATION OF WAR, SEP-1939
No Prior Consultation with the Congress
The German–Soviet Non-aggression Pact, also called the Molotov–
Ribbentrop Pact, or the Nazi–Soviet Pact, was signed between Nazi
Germany and the Soviet Union in Moscow on 23 August 1939, in the
presence of Stalin.
Soon after, on 1 September 1939, Germany invaded Poland (Soviet
Union did so on 17 September 1939). In response, Britain declared war
against Germany two days later—on 3 September 1939. On the same day,
the Viceroy of India, Linlithgow, also announced that India, along with
Britain, had joined the war.
The Congress had expected to be consulted by the British before
declaring war on behalf of India. Much earlier, Sardar Patel had himself
told the Bombay Governor (and the message had got conveyed to the
British Cabinet) that the Congress would expect to be consulted, and its
approval would be sought for India’s participation in the war. The AICC
had declared in May 1939 that the Congress would oppose any attempt to
impose a war on India without the consent of its people.
Yet, the British authorities just didn’t bother. The Congress felt rebuffed
and enraged. It also demonstrated that the British considered the Gandhian
‘threat’ as no threat. They knew that the Gandhian non-violence was an
insurance against any real problem for the Raj.
Congress in a Quandary
What made the position of the Congress even more pathetic was that
they didn’t really wish to oppose the British authorities in India then. But,
the unexpected British behaviour put them in a difficult situation. “If only
the British had given us a face-saver!” they must have been thinking. It was
a Hobson’s choice for them. If they meekly went by the decision of the
British authorities for India to join war efforts—without even consulting
them—they would be seen as a party of no consequence. If they opposed
the decision, the Raj would be annoyed with them, and they might lose any
little leverage that they had. They didn’t really wish to spoil their
relationship with the British. So uncaring and thoughtless of the British! At
least, the British could have kept up some appearances!!
Gandhi’s Stand
Gandhi was at his hypocritical and dramatic best when he met and told
Viceroy Linlithgow he viewed the war “with an English heart”, even as
tears came to his eyes!
Gandhi further told the Viceroy that although he could not speak on
behalf of the Congress, but personally he was all for the Congress giving
unconditional, though non-violent, support to Britain. Gandhi didn’t wish to
embarrass the British. Gandhi felt that by being supportive to the British,
and by allowing the Congress ministries to remain in the office, he could
gradually seek Dominion Status or Purna Swaraj.
Gandhi never wanted to go against the British, but under pressure, and
realising he may otherwise be rendered irrelevant, he gradually veered
round to the opposite position.
Nehru’s Hypocrisy and Show-off
Nehru, though vociferously most anti-fascist and anti-Nazi, and holding
aloft his self-given title of being an internationalist most knowledgeable on
international affairs, advocated rabidly anti-British stand. He also
threatened Congress pulling out from ministries in various provinces—
something the British would have only welcomed!
Nehru took a stand that “friendship between India and England is
possible but only on equal terms”. Further, India could not fight for freedom
of others when it was itself unfree. All that tall talk was fine if the Congress
had the strength to impose its will, and be capable of being enough of a
nuisance for the British to stand up and take notice. But, when the British
perceived the Gandhian methods as no threat at all, where was the need for
them to heed the Congress?
By and large, whatever Nehru favoured or supported or advocated
generally led to difficulties. Why? Nehru, though a big show off, lacked
grasp and depth, was not analytically sharp, and lacked political wisdom
and prudence. Had Gandhi’s prudence and wisdom of supporting the British
in their war effort been followed, and had Nehru’s thoughtless emotional
opposition been ignored, the Congress would have retained an upper hand
against the Muslim League, and may have better managed India’s cause
with the British.
It is worth noting that being more a socialist and a communist
sympathiser than an “internationalist”, Nehru changed his tune soon after
Russia joined the war on the side of Britain, and against Nazis.
Subhas Bose’s line was the most militant: he didn’t want any Indian
men, money and materials (resources) to go into the imperialist war. He
favoured an immediate fight with the British to gain independence.
Patel’s Prudence
While all top Congress leaders were angry, the wiser ones like Patel and
Rajaji, and even Gandhi, felt it would be prudent not to give way to anger,
and to avoid a break with the Raj.
Patel was for whole-hearted cooperation with the British provided an
understanding with them was reached on the future and freedom of India.
During his meeting with Patel in October 1939, Viceroy Linlithgow had
clearly told him that if the Congress did not support him, he would have to
take help from the Muslim League. While Patel initially favoured Gandhi’s
line, looking to the popular perception he veered round to Nehru’s faulty
position. That was a mistake.
Congress Conditions
The Congress put forth two conditions for cooperation to the British:
(1)Britain to announce that India would be free at the end of the war; and
(2)representative Indians to be associated with power at the Centre.
Rather than fully or partially meeting the conditions laid down by the
Congress, the Raj chose to interpret the demands as blackmail by the
Congress during Britain’s life-and-death struggle; and began its divide-
and-rule game even more vigorously by involving, apart from the Muslim
League, the Chamber of Princes too.
All that the Viceroy offered in his reply of 17 October 1939 to the two
conditions of the Congress was that (a)after the war the Indians would have
constitutional talks, and not freedom; and that (2)during the period of the
war the Indians would be granted a consultative committee. In short, both
the demands of the Congress stood rejected. The British government in
India practically shut the door on the Congress.
The Muslim League whole-heartedly and unconditionally supported the
Raj, and gained favour and ascendency over the Congress.
Why the British ignored Gandhi, and the Congress?
If the British had taken the Congress into confidence, there would have
been two positives: what the British had desired would have happened, and
the Congress would also not have felt slighted. Yet, they didn’t do so?
Why? Why weren’t they tactical? Why did they ride roughshod over the
Congress? Especially, when India’s cooperation was critical to them.
The British attitude was driven by the fact that they really had no
intention of quitting India: the loyalty of the Administration (ICS and
others), the Police, and the Army was reassuring for them—whatever co-
operation they desired they knew would be forthcoming from them, and
from the industrialists for the increased production for the war-time
requirements; and they never considered Gandhians and the Gandhian
methods a threat to their rule—in fact, from their angle, they were God-
sent.
It seems clear from this episode that while the Congress and the
Gandhians had too high a notion of their power and clout and
indispensability, the British didn’t really attach much weightage to them.
The peaceful Gandhian method was never a menace for them—at worst, it
was a minor irritation for them, something they gladly indulged the
Congress for, particularly because Gandhi, Gandhism, and the Gandhian
methods had helped gradually eliminate what they were really afraid of:
violence, methods of the revolutionaries, and the likelihood of the Indian
Administration, Indian Police, and Indian Army turning disloyal.
It is worth noting that though apparently opposed, the Gandhi-British
relationship was a mutually beneficial relationship. The British Raj, and at
their tacit approval, the British media and the academia, had helped project
Gandhi as a Mahatma and as the only leader who mattered. They treated
Gandhi & Co well, both outside, and in jail: Gandhi experimented with
nutrition, health, ‘upavas’, and his medicinal quackery in jail; while Nehru,
free from worries, wrote his books in jail.
In return, though not as an agreed quid-pro-quo, but by its very nature,
the non-violent, open, inform-the-authorities-before-you-do Gandhian
movement and policies never materially affected the British power, even
though the British periodically pretended to be hurt by them so as to keep
alive the credibility of the Gandhian policies. It benefited the British,
because Gandhi helped eliminate and discredit all other forms of freedom
movements—by revolutionaries, constitutionalists, etc.—that could really
hurt them, like the INA ultimately managed to do.
NOV-1939: RESIGNATION OF CONGRESS MINISTRIES
(Nehru’s Mega Blunder)
At the CWC meeting at Wardha on 22-23 October 1939 it was decided
not to co-operate with the British in the war, and that the Congress
Provincial Governments would resign by the month-end in protest.
The move was spear-headed by Nehru and the leftists. Patel and Gandhi
were not in favour of non-cooperation with the British in the war, and of the
ministries resigning; but Nehru & Co—the leftists—insisted upon it. The
resignations were effectively a victory of the Congress Left.
It was politics of futile gesture—a big blunder; a political suicide. The
responsibility for this great act of folly rested with Nehru and his socialist
supporters. Nehru had begun committing blunders well before
independence; while after independence it was a torrent of Nehruvian
blunders that ensured India failed to rise from its centuries of slavery and
remained a third-rate, third-world country, even as nations much behind it at
the time of independence raced ahead and joined the first-world.
Wrote Balraj Krishna:
“Yet, he [Patel] seemed to be in agreement with Gandhi insofar
as the continuance of the Congress Ministries was concerned. This
was typical of him as the party boss and as an administrator, who
saw obvious political gains in holding on to power. Linlithgow's
thinking tallied with Patel's. He had written to the King that 'Jinnah
had become alarmed by the defection of a growing number of
Muslims from the Muslim League to the Congress', because the
Ministers could help their friends' and 'inconvenience their
opponents’. Such defections, however probable, could not have
taken place because of the Congress giving up power in the
provinces. The Editor of The Hindu, K. Srinavasan,… 'blamed
Nehru for "the dreadful blunder" of withdrawing the provincial
Ministers from office.'”{BK/199-200}
“The withdrawal was a triumph for the Congress Left—a
triumph which had serious political repercussions. It threw the
Congress into wilderness and gave Jinnah absolute freedom to play
a game that strengthened his position with the British and helped
him, in the end, get Pakistan. The inappropriateness of the
resignations lay in their being most inopportune and untimely,
especially when Linlithgow had formed a favourable opinion of the
Congress leaders and the Congress as a party. He considered the
latter to be 'the only one worthy of the name, and certainly the only
one possessing an active and widespread organisation in the
constituencies.' It was an achievement due to Patel's effective
Chairmanship of the Congress Parliamentary Board. In Patel,
Linlithgow had found 'a sense of humour, a shrewd and active brain
and a strong personality', and Patel clearly saw the point about
avoiding speculative hypothesis as a basis of argument.”{BK/199-200}
The hard-won (thanks mainly to the efforts of Sardar Patel) Congress
ministries in the provinces since 1937, under the strict vigilance of Patel,
had begun to perform better than expected. To guide and coordinate the
activities of the provincial governments, a central control board known as
the Parliamentary Sub-Committee was formed, with Sardar Patel, Maulana
Abul Kalam Azad and Rajendra Prasad as members. A number of measures
in the interest of the general public had been taken. Many Congress
ministers set an example in plain living. They reduced their own salaries.
They made themselves easily accessible to the common people. In a very
short time, a very large number of ameliorative legislations were pushed
through in an attempt to fulfil many of the promises made in the Congress
election manifesto.
Emergency powers acquired by the provincial governments through the
Public Safety Acts and the like were repealed. Bans on illegal political
organizations such as the Hindustan Seva Dal and Youth Leagues and on
political books and journals were lifted. All restrictions on the press were
removed. Securities taken from newspapers and presses were refunded and
pending prosecutions were withdrawn. The blacklisting of newspapers for
purposes of government advertising was given up. Confiscated arms were
returned and forfeited arms licenses were restored. In the Congress
provinces, police powers were curbed and the reporting of public speeches
and the shadowing of political workers by CID agents stopped. Another big
achievement of the Congress Governments was their firm handling of the
communal riots. Rajaji’s premiership of Madras during 1937-39 was
brilliant.
The success rankled both with Jinnah, and the British: they never
wanted the Congress to get popular. Besides, it reduced the British
dependence on the provinces under the Congress rule to mobilise resources
for the WW-II. Both for the British and for Jinnah the Congress Ministries’
resignations were therefore “good riddance”.
It was like giving up all the gains of the 1937-elections; and passing
them on to the then defeated Muslim League. This self-emasculation by the
Congress not only greatly weakened it and drastically slashed its
bargaining position, it threw the Congress into wilderness, and led to the
rise of the Muslim League, separatism, and ultimately partition. The
miscalculated move infuriated the British, drastically curtailed the
Congress influence and clout, and gifted a new lease of life to the Muslim
League.
Jinnah couldn’t help calling it the ‘Himalayan blunder’ of the Congress,
and was determined to take full advantage of it. Jinnah and the Muslim
League went to the extent of calling upon all Muslims to celebrate 22
December 1939 as the “Deliverance Day”—deliverance from the “misrule”
of the Congress. Thanks to Nehru’s blunder, the stars of the Muslim League
began to rise.
The worst effect of the resignations was on NWFP. This
overwhelmingly Muslim province (95%) was ruled in conjunction with the
Congress by the Khan brothers. It was a show-piece for the Congress, and a
negation of all that Jinnah and the Muslim League stood for—majority
Muslim province under the Congress. Resignation by the ruling Congress-
Khan brothers was god-sent for Jinnah and the British. Both quickly
manipulated to install a Muslim League government, and make popular the
divisive agenda. In the Pakistan that the British had planned inclusion of
NWFP was a must, and that was only possible if the Congress and the
Khan-brothers were dislodged. Linlithgow did all he could to install a
Muslim League government in NWFP, including meeting Jinnah
personally{Sar/48}, and instructing the then Punjab Governor Sir George
Cunningham to render all necessary assistance to Jinnah{Sar/49}. Viceroy
Linlithgow had been playing a dangerous and irresponsible divisive game
in India’s North-West, particularly in Punjab and NWFP that ultimately led
to the Partition carnage.
Wrote VP Menon in ‘The Transfer of Power in India’:
“Had it [Congress] not resigned from the position of vantage in
the Provinces the course of Indian history might have been
different… By resigning, it showed a lamentable lack of foresight
and political wisdom. There was little chance of its being put out of
office; the British Government would surely have hesitated to incur
the odium of dismissing ministries which had the overwhelming
support of the people. Nor could it have resisted an unanimous
demand for a change at the Centre, a demand which would have
been all the more irresistible after the entry of Japan into the war. In
any case, it is clear that, but for the resignation of the Congress,
Jinnah and the Muslim League would never have attained the
position they did…”{VPM2/152/L-2901}
AFTER HITLER’S BLITZKRIEG : OCT,1939–JUN,1940
Learning from the attritional deadlock of World War I where two
stationery armies faced each other, the advancement in the technology of
communication, armaments and mobility allowed for the military doctrine
of blitzkrieg (lightning war) that integrated large formations involving
tanks, air power, artillery and motorized infantry, communicating through
radios, into a speedy steel juggernaut capable of smashing through the
enemy lines, paralyzing or overwhelming its rear, and thus maximising
chances of favourable battle outcome in minimum time.
Germany first tried out blitzkrieg in Poland in October 1939.
Encouraged by its success, Hitler invaded Norway and Denmark on 9 April
1940. A month later, on 10 May 1940, it unleashed its blitzkrieg against the
Netherlands and Belgium.
General Erwin Rommel (the “Desert Fox”) led the 7th Panzer Division
as it crashed through the Belgian and Luxembourg defences into France,
skirting the Maginot Line and then smashing it from behind. His tanks
raced forward towards sea to reach the English Channel on 21 May 1940,
cutting off the Allied armies.
Thus, within a short period of six weeks the German army smashed
through six countries!
The Germans entered Paris on 14 June 1940; and in a humiliating
ceremony on 22 June 1940, France signed an armistice with Germany,
leaving Britain to carry on the fight alone.
Its effect in Britain: Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain was replaced
by Winston Churchill; and Labour Party joined the coalition cabinet.
Churchill was a much bigger colonialist and imperialist, and was anti-India,
anti-Congress, and anti-Gandhi.
Its effect in India: The Congress began to re-visit its position vis-à-vis
the Raj.
RAJAJI’S PROPOSAL OF JULY 1940
C (Chakravarthi) Rajagopalachari (CR or Rajaji: 1878–1972) felt the
Congress and Indians must help Britain in its time of distress when it was
fighting with its back to the wall. He wanted the Congress to actively help
Britain in its war effort if Britain committed itself to India’s freedom at the
end of the war, and was agreeable to a representative government in Delhi
right away.
Subhas Bose didn’t believe Britain would ever accede to the desire or
the conditions of the Congress, and felt it was pointless to pursue the matter
with them.
Given his illogical and absurd principle of Ahimsa (non-violence) as an
absolute, Gandhi contended he could not endorse the participation of the
Congress in the violent war, even though his sympathies lay with Britain.
But, perhaps his real reason was his conviction Britain would never accede
to what Rajaji had proposed: give India freedom after the war, and establish
a representative government forthwith. He had sensed Raj–Muslim League
sinister team-up to frustrate the Congress.
Sardar Patel was in a dilemma. What Rajaji had proposed made sense to
him, yet he had implicit faith in Gandhi. He had told Gandhi at Wardha in
June 1940, “If you order me, I will shut my eyes and obey you.” Gandhi,
however, advised him not to do so. Significantly, Patel’s and Gandhi’s idea
of Ahimsa did not coincide: Patel did not rule out violence or force to deal
with internal or external security threats.
Rajaji enlisted support of several, including Maulana Azad. Patel too
thought Rajaji’s proposal was worth a try, and voted for the same in the
meeting of the Working Committee of the Congress. Nehru voted against it.
Thanks to Patel’s backing, Rajaji’s proposal was carried. That meant
Gandhi’s position, as also that of Nehru and several others like Kripalani,
was rejected. Effectively, Patel had gone against Gandhi for the first time.
Subhas Chandra Bose, whose views against collaborating with the
British were well-known, was arrested in July 1940. Jayaprakash Narain
(holding similar views) too was arrested.
At the AICC meet at Poona at the end of July 1940, Nehru reversed his
stand, and voted for Rajaji’s resolution, which was finally ratified by 95
votes to 47.
However, the British authorities threw water on the fond expectations of
the Congress. Rejecting both the demands of the Congress, as per Rajaji’s
proposal, they replied in August 1940 that (1)subject to all the concerned
parties—Britain, Congress, Muslim League and the Princely States—
reaching an agreement, the Executive Council of the Viceroy may
accommodate a certain number of politicians, even though the Viceroy
would retain the right of final decision; and (2)at the end of the war India
would be offered a body to devise the framework of a new constitution, but
NOT freedom; and (3)that Britain would never allow a situation where a
Congress-controlled government could coerce the Muslim League or any
non-Congress bodies into submission.
OCT-1940: SELECTIVE INDIVIDUAL DISOBEDIENCE
Having been granted no fig leaf by the British, the Congress was left
with little alternative but to show its displeasure in some way if it had to
survive as an organisation “fighting” for India’s freedom. However, the
Congress was careful not to annoy the British further by launching some
mass movement. The safer way was to go in for selective individual
disobedience to show its displeasure. However, even that severely limited
and harmless defiance was under the cover of the Congress praising Britain
and the British people for their bravery and endurance in the face of danger
and peril; and vociferously assuring the British that the Congress had
absolutely no ill-will against them. Each individual Satyagrahi had to recite
the unlawful statement, “It is wrong to help the British war effort with men
or money.”
Barring the Christmas holiday season (during which the British were not
to be troubled, as directed by Gandhi), the Satyagrahis courted arrest during
1940; and by the end of year their number grew to about 700. Vinoba Bhave
was the first Satyagrahi, who was arrested on 21 October 1940.
Patel informed the district magistrate of Ahmadabad on 15 November
1940 that he would be reciting the unlawful slogan at a public meeting on
18 November 1940. Before he could do that he was arrested on 17
November 1940 under the Defence of India Act and put in Sabarmati Jail;
and later moved to Yerwada Jail in Pune along with KM Munshi, Bhulabhai
Desai and others.
The number of arrests of those undertaking selective individual
disobedience rose to about 15,000 by May 1941.
By August-September 1941 interest in Satyagraha had died down, and
many in the Congress in the provinces started actively considering return to
offices in the provinces!
PEARL HARBOR, DEC 1941 & ITS AFTERMATH
The Japanese Navy carried out a surprise attack against the US naval
base at Pearl Harbor situated in the US territory of Hawaii at 7.48am
Hawaiian time on 7 December 1941. It was a massive attack in two waves
involving 353 Japanese fighters, bombers, and torpedo planes launched
from six aircraft carriers causing enormous loss to the US Navy: four of its
battleships were sunk, while the remaining four were extensively damaged;
additionally one minelayer, one anti-aircraft training ship, three cruisers,
and three destroyers were badly hit, 188 aircrafts were destroyed, 2403
Americans were killed, while 1178 were wounded.
Both the scale and the unexpectedness of the unprovoked attack
profoundly shocked the Americans. The attack happened without a
declaration of war by Japan or without explicit warning.
What was Japan’s rationale? Japan was planning attack in Southeast
Asia against the overseas territories of the US, the UK, and the Netherlands.
The attack was meant to deter the US from interfering in its plans. The
Pearl Harbor attack was followed by Japanese attacks on the UK-held
Malaya, Singapore, and Hong Kong, and the US-held Philippines, Guam
and Wake Island.
The US joins the War
US domestic support for non-intervention that had been getting weaker
following the fall of France turned belligerent; and following the day of the
Pearl Harbor attack, the United States declared war on Japan on 8
December 1941.
With the US on their side the position of the Allies strengthened.
23 December 1941: Congress Reviews its Stand
Taking cognizance of the changed world situation in the wake of the
Pearl Harbor, the Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting at the end
of December 1941 at Bardoli in Gujarat recognised India could not be
defended non-violently against a Japanese invasion. (—A profound
realisation! As if against an invader other than Japan non-violent means
would have worked!)
At the persuasion of Rajaji, subject to the declaration of freedom for
India, the CWC offered cooperation with the Allies. Gandhi did not oppose,
but made it clear that he would not lead a Congress ready to join a war. In
other words, the CWC yielded on non-violence. At the AICC meeting in
Wardha in January 1942, the Bardoli proposal was ratified in the hope that
the British authorities would do something positive for India.
Fall of SE-Asia & Singapore: Dec 1941–Mar 1942
Japanese forces had invaded French Indo-China on 22 September 1940.
To strengthen themselves, the Axis Powers of Germany, Japan and Italy had
signed a Tripartite Act on 27 September 1940 which stipulated, among
other things, that an enemy of any one of them would be an enemy of all the
three.
The Axis Powers declared war on the US on 11 December 1941. Both
Wake Island and Philippines, then under the US, fell to the Japanese on 23
December 1941 and 27 December 1941 respectively.
Japan attacked Dutch East Indies (part of Indonesia) on 11 January
1942, and captured Borneo, Celebes and Sarawak by 14 January 1942.
Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaya, then under the British, was
captured by Japan on 11 January 1942, taking 50,000 Allied soldiers as
prisoners of war. Singapore was the major British military base in South-
East Asia.
Advancing down the Malaya peninsula, Japan attacked Singapore—aka
the ‘Gibraltar of the East’—and captured it on 15 February 1942, taking
85,000 Allied soldiers as POW.
Burma (Myanmar) came under the Japanese attack on 15 January 1942.
With Rangoon as the next target of the Japanese blitzkrieg, attack on India
seemed imminent.
Looking to the critical situation, the US President Roosevelt and the
Chinese Generalissimo Chiang urged the British PM Churchill to make a
reconciliatory move towards the Congress. Churchill was reluctant, but
once Rangoon fell on 7 March 1942, he was forced to make a move. He
announced a mission to Delhi under the Leader of the House, Sir Stafford
Cripps.
1940 : UDHAM SINGH AVENGES JALLIANWALA MASSACRE
Shahid Udhan Singh’s father was a railway crossing
watchman in the village of Upalli. Upon his father's death, he was taken in
by the Central Khalsa Orphanage Putlighar in Amritsar. He did
matriculation in 1918.
The Jallianwala Bagh Massacre of 13 April 1919 deeply shook him. He
was present there. He defied the curfew to retrieve the body of the husband
of one Rattan Devi following the slaughter, and was wounded. The scars
left on him could only have been healed through revenge.
He travelled abroad to Africa, Europe and the US, and got involved with
the Ghadar Party, and began organizing overseas Indians in overthrowing
the colonial rule. On a call from Shahid Bhagat Singh, he returned to India
in 1927 with 25 associates, carrying arms and ammunition. He was arrested
for possession of unlicensed arms. After release from prison in 1931 he was
constantly tracked by the British intelligence. He somehow made his way to
Kashmir, and escaped to Germany, from where he reached London.
He avenged Jallianwala Bagh Massacre by shooting Sir Michael Francis
O'Dwyer in Caxton Hall in London on 13 March 1940. O'Dwyer was the
Lieutenant Governor of Punjab between 1912 and 1919, and was in the
saddle at the time of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. He had backed General
Reginald Dyer for the butchery. In a telegram sent to Dyer, O'Dwyer wrote:
“Your action is correct. Lieutenant Governor approves.”
On 31 July 1940, he was hanged at Pentonville Prison in Barnsbury,
London and buried within the prison grounds. Udham Singh stated his
motivation for killing thus: “I did it because I had a grudge against him. He
deserved it. He was the real culprit. He wanted to crush the spirit of my
people, so I have crushed him. For full 21 years, I have been trying to
wreak vengeance. I am happy that I have done the job. I am not scared of
death. I am dying for my country. I have seen my people starving in India
under the British rule. I have protested against this, it was my duty. What
greater honour could be bestowed on me than death for the sake of my
motherland?”
Gandhi-Nehru’s Condemnable Condemnation:
Sadly, but expectedly, Gandhi condemned the killing by Udham Singh,
saying, “…the outrage has caused me deep pain. I regard it as an act of
insanity... I hope this will not be allowed to affect political judgement…”
Notably, while awaiting a trial in Brixton Prison, Udham Singh went on a
hunger strike for 42 days. Please recall Jatin Das’s earlier fast of 63 days in
1929. Compare these with the longest fast of Gandhi that lasted only 21
days. No wonder Gandhi didn’t like the revolutionaries—beating him
hollow in his favourite weapon of fasting.
Jawaharlal Nehru wrote in The National Herald: “…assassination is
regretted but it is earnestly hoped that it will not have far-reaching
repercussions on political future of India.” However, the politician Nehru
conveniently reversed his statement in 1962: “I salute Shaheed-i-Azam
Udham Singh with reverence who had kissed the noose so that we may be
free.”
MARCH 1940 : LEAGUE’S LAHORE RESOLUTION
In its three-day general session in Lahore on 22–24 March 1940 the All-
India Muslim League (AIML) passed a resolution authored by Sir
Muhammad Zafarullah Khan and others, and presented by Bengal Premier
Fazlul Huq at the instance of Jinnah, the portions of which read:
“…3. Resolved that it is the considered view of this Session of the All-
India Muslim League that no constitutional plan would be workable in this
country or acceptable to the Muslims unless it is designated on the
following basic principle, viz. that geographically contiguous units are
demarcated into regions which should be so constituted with such territorial
readjustments as may be necessary, that the areas in which the Muslims are
numerically in a majority as in the North-Western and Eastern Zones of
India should be grouped to constitute ‘Independent States’ in which the
Constituent Units shall be autonomous and sovereign…”
This resolution that clearly hinted at Pakistan came to be known as the
Lahore Resolution.
Chaudhry Khaliquzzaman (1889–1973), a top AIML leader, narrated in
his autobiography ‘Pathway to Pakistan’ that a year earlier to the Lahore
Resolution he had met Under-Secretary of State (for India) Colonel
Muirhead and Secretary of State (for India) Lord Zetland in March 1939 in
London, and had discussed with them ‘Partition and Pakistan’, something
that was enthusiastically encouraged by them. Upon his return to India he
had apprised Jinnah on the discussions, and had expressed confidence that
the British would ‘ultimately concede partition’.{Akb/322-23}
As late as March 1940 Jinnah expected to be recognised by Gandhi and
the Congress as the sole spokesman of the Muslims. Congress, instead,
elected Maulana Azad as its President at the Ramgarh Congress held on 19-
20 March 1940 to demonstrate they did not recognise Jinnah as the sole
spokesman. Remarked Jinnah to Durga Das: “No, Durga, if only Gandhi
would join hands with me, the British game of divide and rule would be
frustrated.”{DD/194}
Net result: Muslim League’s Lahore Resolution indirectly hinting about
Pakistan was passed on 26 March 1940. Later, when a journalist asked
Jinnah if the resolution meant “a demand for Pakistan”, Jinnah skirted the
question, and did not use the word Pakistan.
Wrote Durga Das: “When I met Jinnah after the [Lahore] session and
pointed out that Sikandar Hayat Khan had categorically told me that the
[Lahore] resolution [hinting at Pakistan] was essentially a bargaining
counter, Jinnah replied: ‘A bargain, my friend, is struck between two
parties. Let the Congress first accept the League as the other party.’”{DD/195}
1940–46: CONGRESS DESCENT & LEAGUE ASCENDENCY
Once the Muslim League’s agenda became explicitly divisive after the
Lahore Resolution of March 1940, it gained ascendency in popular Muslim
perception on the hope of a separate country. Nothing like hate and
divisiveness for a destructive agenda!
The Muslim consolidation under the above hate and divisive agenda got
coupled with the following four major factors that led to Muslim
ascendency, and ultimately the Partition and Pakistan: (1)Resignation of the
Congress from the Provincial Ministries they were ruling in 1939 at the
insistence of Nehru and the left, leaving the field open for the Muslim
League. (2)Misreading of how the WW-II would unfold by Gandhi and the
Congress, making them adopt the wrong strategy of opposition and non-
cooperation with the British during the WW-II, turning the British hostile
towards the Congress, and to the interests of India and the Hindus. (3)With
all the top Congress leaders in jail for a couple of years between 1940 and
1946, even as the Congress hold suffered, the Muslim League came up, as
was obvious from the 1946 election results. (4)The Muslim League strategy
of full co-operation with the British, and being dog-like, paid them rich
dividends. Jinnah and the AIML willingly, fully, unhesitatingly, and
unconditionally supported the British during the WW-II, and didn’t waiver
in their commitment and cooperation even during the phases the British
chips were down. That won them gratitude, admiration and full support of
the British. On the other hand, Gandhi and the Congress tried to bargain and
to exploit and arm-twist the British into yielding major concessions in
return for their cooperation—and that made the British anti-Gandhi and
anti-Congress.
Essentially, the Gandhism and the Congressism was out of its depth, and
lacked the knowledge, sharpness, realism, comprehension, and guts to face
up to the challenges. Other than the self-defeating non-violence and
ineffective non-cooperation they had nothing in their arsenal.
1940-42: NETAJI SUBHAS ESCAPES
Subhas Chandra Bose advocated a campaign of mass civil disobedience
to protest Viceroy Linlithgow's decision to declare war on India's behalf
without consulting the Congress. Failing to persuade Gandhi or the
Congress, he organised mass protests in Calcutta, and was arrested in July
1940. Released after a 7-day hunger strike, his house was put under CID-
surveillance.
However, in a daredevil act, Bose managed to escaped on 19 January
1941 along with his nephew Sisir Bose. Remaining incognito, he reached
Germany via Afghanistan, Russia and Italy. The feat required tremendous
guts, intelligence, cunning, and risk-taking ability. But, that was Bose, a
leader like no other in India.
Over Radio Berlin, Indians heard Bose for the first time after about a
year in March 1942 confirming his taking of help from the Axis Powers for
Indian independence.
With the Indian public, particularly the youth, gaga over the daring of
Subhas, Nehru, who used to show himself off as a combative youthful
leader, felt jealous, and tried to demonstrate his “principled” anti-fascist
position by claiming on 12 April 1942 that he would even fight Subhas on
the battlefield. People would have wondered why Nehru never showed that
dare against the real enemy, the British.
While Nehru felt deeply jealous of Bose, Gandhi genuinely admired
Bose’s dare and his tremendous feat.
MARCH-APRIL 1942 : CRIPPS MISSION
Following the successful Japanese navy attack on the Pearl Harbor
situated in the US territory of Hawaii on 7 December 1941, the Japanese
blitzkrieg triumphantly rolled through the Wake Island (then under the US),
the Philippines (then under the US), Malaysia (then under the British),
Indonesia, Singapore (then under the British), and then Burma (Myanmar,
then under the British). Rangoon fell on 7 March 1942. With that, the attack
on India seemed imminent.
Looking to the critical situation, the US President Roosevelt and the
Chinese Generalissimo Chiang urged the British PM Churchill to make a
reconciliatory move towards the Congress to gain co-operation in the
ongoing war. Churchill was reluctant, but once Rangoon fell, he was forced
to make a move. He announced a mission to Delhi under the Leader of the
House, Sir Stafford Cripps.
Sir Richard Stafford Cripps (1889–1952) arrived in Delhi on 22 March
1942 along with his team. Cripps was a Labour MP, the leader of the House
of Commons, and a member of the British War Cabinet. He had brought
with him a new constitutional scheme approved by the British Cabinet. In
return, the British sought co-operation in the war-efforts. The team spent
three weeks in India in March and April 1942, and had prolonged
discussions with the concerned parties. Nehru and Maulana Azad were the
official negotiators for the Congress.
Cripps announced his proposals in the form of Draft Declaration on 30
March 1942: (1)Right away, India could have a national government
composed of representatives of the leading political parties. (2)Formation of
a post-war Constituent Assembly whose members would be chosen by
provincial legislatures or nominated by the princes. (3)India to be granted
full Dominion Status after the war, with the right of secession from the
Commonwealth. (4)Secession clause: Once India became a Dominion after
the war, every province would have the right to secede and obtain a status
equal to that of the Indian Dominion.{BKM}
Both Gandhi and Patel rejected the proposal, mainly on account of the
secession clause. Rajaji, Nehru and Maulana Azad, however, desired
continuance of talks with Cripps. Though Patel was of the opinion “no
more mischievous scheme had been conceived”{RG/306} about the Cripps Plan,
he didn’t mind continuance of talks, something Gandhi felt was pointless,
and was annoyed about.
If one examines the above, and what India got in 1947 (Dominion
Status), the only objectionable clause appears to the fourth-clause, the
secession-clause. Both the Congress and the Muslim League had problems
with it, but in an opposite sort of way. Jinnah termed the secession clause as
an implicit recognition of Pakistan; but rejected the proposal, as what he
wanted was an explicit recognition of the right of the “Muslim nation” to
separate. Gandhi, and many other Congress leaders expressed their
disapproval of the proposal principally on account of the secession clause.
The British had perhaps put the clause to make it partially acceptable to
both: No explicit Pakistan, to satisfy the Congress; and a possibility of
Pakistan through the secession-clause to satisfy the Muslim League, and
serve their [British] own selfish intentions too.
Gandhi had called Cripps’s offer “a post-dated cheque”, to which
someone added “on a failing bank”. Why? Looking to the way Japan was
trouncing the British and the US in SE-Asia, and was in Burma, at India’s
doors, the Congress was elated Japan was doing their work of evicting the
British. They had already written-off the British! Hence the term “the
failing bank”, and the “post-dated cheque” that was bound to bounce as the
British would not have anything to give anyway. Such a faulty reading of
the likely scenario was thanks to Gandhi, Nehru & Company’s naivete on
military and international affairs! Rather than considering the offer
seriously and negotiating on the secession-clause; driven by hubris thanks
to Japan’s military success, and over-confident they had an upper hand, and
that the British were in dire need of their co-operation, they acted difficult
and unreasonable. Had they made sensible negotiation on the secession-
clause India could have got the self-government five years earlier, and there
would perhaps have been no partition and Pakistan. Attlee had commented:
“It was a great pity that eventually the Indians turned this down, as full self-
government might have been ante-dated by some years.”{JA/232}
Nehru and Company (Maulana Azad, etc.) were most vehement in their
rejection of the Cripps Plan, and it was their inflexibility, along with that of
Gandhi, that carried the day. Surprisingly, the irritant was not the secession
clause (Had they indirectly and implicitly conceded Pakistan? During the
discussions, Nehru and Azad had even clarified that they could not “think in
terms of compelling the people of any territorial unit to remain in an Indian
Union against their declared and established will”.{RG2/L-5260}). Nehru had two
objections. One: the proposed new cabinet to be installed right away of the
Congress and other politicians would not have the final authority, and that
the Viceroy would not just be a constitutional head, but would have a veto.
In war-time, could the British have left things to quibbling and sissy
Congress politicians!? In this context it is worth noting that it was
principally Nehru who ensured Mountbatten as the first Governor General
of Free India after independence, and allowed him to take crucial decisions,
including that on Kashmir—which proved disastrous for India! Two: The
defence would remain in the charge of the British Commander-in-Chief.
Nehru wanted full control over the armed forces. The British handing
Defence Ministry to the Congress politicians during the war-time was
unthinkable. Did the Congress politicians have any knowledge and
expertise in defence matters and war? What happened post-independence in
J&K and in India-China war is well-known! Further, post-independence
Free India indeed had a British Commander-in-Chief. How did Nehru
accept that as PM of Free India? In short, among the main leaders
responsible for the failure of the Cripps Mission was Nehru. Unsuccessful,
Cripps left India on 12 April 1942.
Another view is that the Cripps Mission was forced on the British by the
US to get the Indian cooperation during the war. Forced into it, Churchill
and Viceroy Linlithgow deliberately introduced the secession clause to
ensure the Mission was aborted. In any case the terms could have been
better and reasonably negotiated by Nehru and Azad who were entrusted
with the responsibility; because it was not as if India got better terms in
1947—the secession did happen!
APR-1942: CR’S FORMULA ON PAKISTAN
In the background of the AIML’s Lahore Resolution of March 1940
hinting at Pakistan , and its subsequent pronouncements and actions,
C Rajagopalachari (aka CR or Rajaji) interpreted the CWC’s clarification
during the talks with Stafford Cripps in 1942 that they could not “think in
terms of compelling the people of any territorial unit to remain in an Indian
Union against their declared and established will” as acceptance of ‘the
principle of Pakistan’. Patel and several others totally differed with such an
interpretation.
Rajaji’s rationale for his proposal or formula was the following. Rather
than making futile attempts at adjustments with the Muslims, the Muslim
League, and other Muslim parties to somehow maintain a fragile unified
Central Government, Rajaji felt it was better to let the Muslim-majority
areas secede to form Pakistan so that the Congress could form a strong
Central Government for the rest of India. As per the CR’s formula, at the
end of WW-II a commission be appointed to demarcate the districts having
a Muslim population in absolute majority and in those areas plebiscite be
conducted on all inhabitants (including the non-Muslims) on the basis of
adult suffrage. That is, as per the CR’s formula, the areas that could form
Pakistan were not to be on the provincial basis (that is, the provinces like
Punjab or Bengal could not decide as a whole whether to go to Pakistan or
not), but on district-by-district basis.
Rajaji’s purpose was also to bring forth the contradictions in Jinnah’s
stand (Provincial vs. Communal basis of partition) that could have made
Muslims rethink on their Pakistan demand. CR’s Proposal to accept the
Muslim League’s claim for separation of the Muslim-majority areas was put
up to the AICC on 24 April 1942 by the Congress legislators of Madras,
guided by Rajaji. However, the AICC rejected the proposal 120 to 15.
Thereupon, Rajaji began canvassing the proposal with the general public.
That was violation of the Congress discipline. While he didn’t mind Rajaji’s
free expression of his views, Gandhi did mention to Rajaji: “It will be most
becoming for you to sever your connection with the Congress and then
carry on your campaign with all the zeal and ability you are capable of.”
Rajaji resigned both from the Congress and the Assembly, but stubbornly
stuck to his views.
However, when Gandhi engaged Jinnah in talks in 1944, the basis of his
talks was the CR Formula. The ultimate Partition and Pakistan too was
close to what CR had proposed back in 1942.
Notably, Jinnah had rejected the CR Formula. Why? Jinnah wanted the
whole of Punjab and Bengal to be in proposed Pakistan on the provincial
basis (province as a whole), rather on the district-by-district basis that
would have partitioned the two provinces. There lay the contradictions in
Jinnah and AIML’s demands. If Pakistan was to be on communal basis
(Muslim-majority), how could they demand inclusion of Hindu-majority
areas of Punjab and Bengal, and of Assam! Jinnah rejected the CR Formula
on the ground that it offered “a maimed, mutilated and moth-eaten
Pakistan.”{RG3/248}
AUGUST-1942: QUIT INDIA MOVEMENT [P]
Please check next chapter.
1943–46
1943–44: BRITISH GIFT—THE GREAT BENGAL FAMINE
The Bengal Famine of 1943-44 was totally man-made, rather British-
made, in which 3.5 million Indians perished. It exposed the callousness,
total disregard for Indian life, cruelty beyond compare, and lamentable
administrative incompetence of the British. Even as people were dying,
food was exported from India abroad to feed the army engaged in World
War II. Although, food production was higher in 1943 compared to 1941,
owing to the British empire taking 60% of all harvests and ordering Bengal
to supply a greater proportion of the food for their army to fight the
Japanese, the demand exceeded the supply. The highest mortality was not in
very poor groups, but among artisans and small traders whose income
vanished when people spent all they had on food and did not employ
cobblers, carpenters, etc. The famine also caused major economic and
social disruption, ruining millions of families.
When appraised of the Bengal Famine crisis, Prime Minister Winston
Churchill cruelly commented that as far as he was concerned “the
starvation of anyhow underfed Bengalis is less serious than...” and that
Indians would anyway “breed like rabbits”. In response to the telegraphic
request from India for food shipment for famine, Churchill heartlessly
responded: “Is Gandhi still alive?”
It is worth noting that after the 1857-Mutiny and the start of the British
Raj, during the next 60-year period of 1860–1920, thanks to the changes in
the land-laws and extraction of punishing revenues by the British, the
hitherto famine-free and prosperous India witnessed unprecedented famines
affecting crores of population, and resulting in the death of 24 million
people!{PP/249}
MAY 1944 ONWARDS: GANDHI’S MAJOR COME-DOWN MOVES
After release from jail on 6 May 1944 Gandhi went in for physical
recovery. While recuperating in the hill-station of Panchgani Gandhi began
planning on how to get the Congress up from its down and out status—the
net result of its own making!
After consultations with Rajaji at Panchgani Gandhi wrote to Viceroy
Wavell that subject to the formation of a national government responsible to
the Central Assembly he would advise the CWC that the Congress must
withdraw “disobedience”, and should fully cooperate with the war efforts.
Gandhi’s offer to the British was a huge come down from the “Quit India”
demands. Yet, the Viceroy spurned the offer! Showed how little the Raj
cared for the Congress or Gandhi.
Spurned by the British after release from jail on 6 May 1944, Gandhi
commenced parleys with Jinnah. In just one month in September 1944,
Gandhi visited Jinnah’s home 14 times! That hugely gave boost to Jinnah’s
stature, particularly in the eyes of the Muslim public, and the Muslim
leaders. This time Gandhi offered to Jinnah what he [Gandhi] was totally
opposed to earlier.
Gandhi wanted the Congress and the Muslim League to jointly demand
a national government from the Raj—the mutual understanding being that
the contiguous Muslim-majority areas could secede upon gaining
independence, if the majority adult population of those areas so desired.
That amounted to conceding Pakistan—what Rajaji had proposed way back
in April 1942.
Jinnah, however, rejected the offer for several reasons: (a)Pakistan on
offer was not big enough. It excluded the Hindu-majority areas of Punjab
and Bengal. (b)Gandhi’s offer of Pakistan was post-independence, while
Jinnah desired Pakistan prior to independence, or simultaneously with it,
and under the aegis of the British, for he didn’t trust the Congress.
(c)Gandhi’s offer tended to dilute Pakistan’s sovereignty by stipulating a
written agreement on Hindustan–Pakistan alliance. (d)The Pakistan on offer
was subject to a plebiscite.
Rebuffed, Gandhi’s logical response was, as articulated by him in his
letter to Jinnah of 15 September 1944: “I find no parallel in history for a
body of converts and their descendants claiming to be a nation apart from
the parent stock. If India was one nation before the advent of Islam, it must
remain one in spite of the change of faith of a very large body of her
children.”{CWMG/V-84/381} {Par/178} In an interview to “News Chronicle” on 29
September 1944, Gandhi commented: “ I think he [Jinnah] is suffering from
hallucination when he imagines that an unnatural division of India could
bring either happiness or prosperity to the people concerned.” {CWMG/Vol-84/424}
Viceroy noted in his diary on the Gandhi–Jinnah meeting: “The two
great mountains have met and not even a ridiculous mouse has
emerged.” {PF/187}
Those like Patel, Azad, Nehru and others who were in Ahmednagar jail
then were unhappy with Gandhi’s moves, when they came to know of them.
The land-mass that Jinnah ultimately got for Pakistan in 1947 was much
like what the CR Formula of 1942 and the Gandhi’s offer of 1944
contained. Had Jinnah agreed, perhaps the independence could have been
earlier, and there might not have been the partition-mayhem on the scale
that happened in 1947.
MAY 1944 ONWARDS: SIDE-LINING OF GANDHI
After the release of Gandhi from prison on 6 May 1944, his role in the
freedom movement and transfer of power gradually dwindled.
As long as Gandhi was soft on the British (before 1942), the British
gave him due importance, and even helped his projection as a Mahatma.
However, after Quit India he almost became like a persona non grata for the
British. That lessened his stature and clout in the Congress too. Besides, the
British found him to be too complex and unreliable a person to do further
business with. The British therefore turned to Sardar Patel and Nehru.
Sardar Patel had internally (although he was not explicit about it)
realised that Gandhian methods had ultimately fetched little for India; and if
he [Sardar Patel] had to contribute something worthwhile for the country in
its critical hours after his release from jail in 1945, he had to ignore Gandhi
and Gandhism, and chart out a course on his own. Without doubt, Sardar
was far more capable a person, but by being subservient to Gandhi, his vast
potential had remained untapped. The British also found Patel to be a frank
and forthright person capable of taking decisions, convincing others, and
standing by those decisions. They therefore began doing business with
Patel, ignoring Gandhi.
In response to Gandhi’s announcement in Calcutta on 9 August 1947
that he would spend the rest of his life in Pakistan, Mountbatten reported to
London:
“Gandhi has announced his decision to spend the rest of his life
in Pakistan looking after the minorities. This will infuriate Jinnah,
but will be great relief to Congress for, as I have said before, his
[Gandhi’s] influence is largely negative or even destructive and
directed against the only man who has his feet firmly on ground,
Vallabhbhai Patel.”{Wolp/336}{Tunz/236}
Gandhi had said in a prayer meeting on 1 April 1947: “No one listens to
me anymore. I am a small man. True, there was a time when mine was a big
voice. Then everyone obeyed what I said; now neither the Congress nor the
Hindus nor the Muslims listen to me... I am crying in the wilderness.
…”{CWMG/Vol-94}
Gandhi had remarked a few weeks before his death, in a prayer meeting
in New Delhi on 25 November 1947: “…But, today I have become a sort of
burden. There was a time when my word was law. But it is no longer
so.”{CWMG/Vol-97/394}
15 June 1945: Release of Nehru, Patel, etc.
Nehru, Sardar Patel and others, arrested during Quit India 1942, were
released from prison.
25 JUNE 1945 : SHIMLA CONFERENCE
The Shimla Conference was a meeting between Viceroy Archibald
Wavell and the major political leaders of British India at Shimla on 25 June
1945. It was convened to discuss the Wavell Plan for Indian self-
government which, briefly, was as under:
The British Government would introduce constitutional reforms
in India after the war if all the Indian political parties agree to help
the British war effort. The Viceroy’s Executive Council would be
reconstituted. The Council would have equal [why?] representation
of high-caste Hindus and Muslims. Other minorities, including low-
caste Hindus, Shudras and Sikhs, would be given representation in
the Council. All the members of the Council, except the Viceroy and
the Commander-in-Chief, would be Indians. An Indian would be a
member for Foreign Affairs in the Council, although a British
commissioner would be responsible for trade matters. The defence
of India would remain in British hands until power was ultimately
transferred. The Viceroy would convene a meeting of Indian
politicians including the leaders of Congress and the Muslim
League at which they would nominate members of the new Council.
If the plan is approved for the central government, then similar
councils of local political leaders would be formed in all the
provinces. None of the changes suggested would in any way
prejudice or prejudge the essential form of the future permanent
Constitution of India.
The Plan had these drawbacks: It neither contained an assurance on the
Indian independence, nor on the formation of the Constituent Assembly. It
deliberately and mischievously used the terms high-caste and low-caste
Hindus—the hall-mark of the Raj was to create, provoke or exacerbate as
many divisions and as much conflict as possible among Indians. Hindus and
Muslims were kept at par despite Muslims being less than one-third of the
population.
Jinnah demanded that Muslims in the Council would be nominated by
the Muslim League alone, they being their sole representative, and that the
Congress can NOT nominate Muslims, something that was totally
unacceptable to the Congress, for they claimed to represent all sections of
the society. Neither the Congress nor the Muslim League was willing to
yield. Although Jinnah’s contention was obviously unreasonable, and it was
clear to Viceroy Wavell too, yet Wavell, cheesed off over “Quit India”,
wanted to humour Jinnah over the Congress. Wavell, therefore, flatly
announced that the talks had failed.
Indirectly it meant the Viceroy had given in to Jinnah’s intransigence
and unreasonableness. That projected Jinnah as more powerful than Gandhi,
and made him even more popular among the Muslim masses and Muslim
leaders. In short, the only person who gained from the failure of the
Conference was Jinnah. It also adversely affected the position of the non-
Muslim League political parties in the Muslim-majority areas like Punjab,
Bengal, Sindh, and NWFP, like the Unionist Party in Punjab, which had
coalition with or support from Hindus, and/or were not rabidly in favour of
partition or Pakistan. Thanks to Wavell and the British, Jinnah got a leg up.
Jinnah was not a pan-India Muslim leader. He had many tall adversaries in
the provinces like the Punjab Chief Minister Khizr Hyat Khan Tiwana, and
the NWFP Chief Minister Dr Khan Sahib. But, the British machinations had
artificially inflated Jinnah’s stature, and had helped project Jinnah as the
sole Muslim representative. It also ultimately had the effect of breaking the
Unionist Party in Punjab and paving the way for the partition.
Indeed, the partition and Pakistan was a mischief cooked up by the
British, which they wanted to execute via Jinnah. The strategic interests of
the British dictated that the India’s north-west adjoining the oil-rich middle-
east remain with the Muslim-majority Pakistan that would be friendly with
them, and do their bidding. Gandhians, despite the presence of the
“internationalist” Nehru among them, appeared not to have a clue on this
critical and decisive factor.
Many have opined that Wavell unnecessarily capitulated to Jinnah. They
don’t appreciate that the British had cunningly planned it that way in their
own self-interest. It was not an accidental or unfortunate capitulation. It was
a planned move. Both Wavell and Jinnah were acting to a script. Churchill
had advised Jinnah to stand firm to get his Pakistan, which the British too
desired. Journalist Durga Das had asked Jinnah as to why he had spurned
the Wavell Plan when the parity between the League and the Congress had
been conceded. Responded Jinnah: “Am I a fool to accept this when I am
offered Pakistan on a platter.”{DD/216} Stunned, Durga Das made careful,
searching and thorough enquiries on Jinnah’s apparently fantastic claim. He
learnt that a member of the Executive Council of the Viceroy had indeed
sent a secret message to Jinnah on behalf of an influential section in London
that “if Jinnah stepped out of the talks, he would be rewarded with
Pakistan”.{DD/216}
END 1945—1946 : ELECTIONS
Elections to the Central and the Provincial Assemblies were scheduled
at the end of 1945, and were to extend into 1946. The franchise for the
elections was still limited to about 10% of the population for the Provinces,
and less than 1% for the Centre. Sardar Patel was not in favour of elections
at that juncture for several reasons: many Congress leaders and cadres were
still in jails; Patel and others were released from jails only in June 1945, and
have had little time to prepare for elections; electoral rolls were not revised,
leaving many young out of the fold. Yet, Maulana Azad, as the Congress
President then, agreed for elections. Why? Did he secretly desire an
advantage for the Muslims, and the Muslim League? One doesn’t know. In
any case, why didn’t he heed the wise counsel of Patel?
The Congress did manage to get considerable Muslim votes a decade
earlier in the 1936 elections. However, in the 1945-46 elections, it was
almost a clean sweep by the Muslim League in Muslim areas. The Muslim
League decidedly commanded the Muslim vote, except in NWFP, thanks to
the Seemant Gandhi Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan. The Muslim League
(AIML) got all the 30 Muslim seats (100%) in the Central Assembly, and
429 of the 492 Muslim seats (87.2%) in the 11 provinces (against less than
100 in 1937-elections). Notably, the AIML won 29 out of 29 Muslim seats
in Madras, 30 out of 30 in Bombay, 4 out of 4 in Orrisa, 114 out of 119 in
Bengal, 54 out of 66 in UP, 75 out of 86 in Punjab, 34 out of 40 in Bihar, 13
out of 14 in CP&Berar, 31 out of 34 in Assam, 28 out of 34 in Sind, and 17
out of 36 in NWFP. Vote percentage wise, the AIML got 86.7% and 74.7%
of the Muslim votes cast for the Central Assembly and the Provinces
respectively, while the Congress got mere 1.3% and 4.67% of the Muslim
votes respectively, the remaining going to other Muslim and non-Muslim
parties.
Many factors led to such favourable results for the Jinnah’s Muslim
League: resignation of the Congress ministries in 1939, leaving the field
open for the British and their collaborators, the Muslim League; “Quit
India” call of 1942 that amounted to the Congress quitting the political
scene for the next 3 years; growing Raj–League bonhomie at the expense of
Raj–Congress relationship; Islam-in-danger cry; hope for creation of
Pakistan; perception in the Muslim mind of Jinnah as a powerful leader,
what with Gandhi repeatedly knocking at his doors, and Viceroy Wavell
[deliberately, and as per a well laid-out British plan] capitulating to his
conditions in the Shimla Conference.
The results further boosted Jinnah’s stature, and he became even more
aggressive, uncompromising, intransigent and intractable in his
unreasonable demands.
Election Results
The Congress won 56 seats in the Central Assembly and 930 in the
provinces, thanks to the non-Muslim vote which was firmly with it.
In Sind, out of a total of 60, the Congress had won 22, and the Muslim
League 27 seats. In Punjab, out of a total of 175, Muslim League won 75,
Unionists 21, Congress 51, Sikhs 21, and independents 7. In Bengal, out of
a total of 250, Muslim League won 115, Other Muslims 3, Congress 62,
Other Hindu Parties and Scheduled Castes 31, Krishak Praja Party 5,
Communists 3, Christians and Anglo-Indians 6, and Europeans 25.
The overall position could have been much better had Azad, as
President of the Congress, not acted dictatorial, and heeded Patel’s advice.
Azad’s Blunders in Sind, Punjab and Bengal
In Sind, Patel had brought several non-Muslim League Muslims to his
side, notably the Chief Minister Ghulam Hussain Hidayatullah, Maula Bux,
and his brother Allah Bux; and was confident of managing a majority of 35
seats out of 60. Wrote Stanley Wolpert in his book ‘Jinnah of Pakistan’: “It
was a most bitter pill for Jinnah to swallow. He had laboured long and hard
for an independent province of Sind. Now the Sardar, the Congress’s strong
man, the shrew organisational hand…had snatched the plum from Jinnah’s
lips just as he was about to savour its sweetness.”{Wolp/164}
Azad, however, was involved in his own pointless exercise in Sind of
aligning with the Muslim League to form a ministry, against the advice of
Patel, and without the approval of the CWC. He undid the work of Patel;
and ultimately it was the Muslim League which formed the ministry in a
coalition that excluded the Congress.
Similarly, Azad messed up both Punjab and Bengal. As the Congress
President, and as a Muslim, he had ruled that it would be he who would
deal with, and take final decisions on, the Muslim-majority provinces. Azad
was devoted to protecting and furthering Muslim interests. He was in the
Congress because he felt he could advance Muslim interests better by being
in the Congress, rather than by being in the Muslim League. In his
arrogance, he ignored Patel. Azad lacked the organisational ability, wisdom
and tact of Patel, and the Congress suffered at the critical juncture. The
magic that Patel could weave in 1937-elections, he could not do in 1945-46,
thanks to Azad trying to be one up. Azad’s secret machinations vis-à-vis the
Cabinet Mission Plan that favoured the Muslim-dominated Groupings so
disturbed Gandhi that he was compelled to ask for his resignation from the
post of the Congress President.
APRIL 1946 : GANDHI-NEHRU HIJACK PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS
Race for India’s First PM: Iron Man vs. Nehru
Post 1945, with the increasing hopes of the imminence of India’s
independence, all patriots looked forward to having a strong, assertive,
competent, decisive, no-nonsense person as India’s first prime minister,
who would bring back the lost glory of India, and turn it into a modern,
prosperous nation. Iron Man Sardar Patel was the clear choice, being a cut
much above the rest. And, nobody looked forward to having some
undemocratic, indecisive, clueless leader to mess up a hard-won freedom
after centuries.
The Congress Party had practically witnessed Patel as a great executor,
organizer and leader, with his feet on the ground. Sardar had demonstrated
his prowess in the various movements and assignments, including that in
the Nagpur Agitation of 1923; the Borsad Satyagraha of 1923; excellent
management of the Ahmedabad Municipality during 1924-27; tackling of
the Ahmedabad Floods of 1927; the Bardoli Satyagraha of 1928 that earned
him the title of "Sardar"; the Dandi March and the Salt Satyagraha of 1930;
successful management of elections for the Congress during 1934-37;
preparation, conduct and management of Haripura session of the Congress
in 1938 on a massive scale; building up of the party machine; role in
preparation for the Quit India Movement; and premier leadership role 1945
onwards. Patel’s achievements were far in excess of Nehru’s, and all
Congress persons and the country knew it.
Sardar was far better academically, and much more intelligent than
Nehru. Like Nehru, Sardar Patel too had studied in England. But, while
Nehru’s father financed all his education, Sardar financed his own
education in England, through his own earnings! While Nehru could
manage to scrape through in only a poor lower second-division in England,
Sardar Patel topped in the first division!
Professionally too, Sardar was a successful lawyer, while Nehru was a
failure. Sardar had a roaring practice, and was the highest paid lawyer in
Ahmedabad, before he left it all on a call by Gandhi; while Nehru was
dependent upon his father for his own upkeep, and that of his family.
Wrote Balraj Krishna:
“Common talk among the members of the Indian Civil Service
post-Independence used to be: ‘If the dead body of the Sardar were
stuffed and placed on a chair, he could still rule.’”{BK/xi}
Based on the ground-level practical experience since 1917, it could be
said with certainty in 1946 that Nehru was no match for Sardar for the
critical post of the prime minister. Of course, Nehru as PM in practice
confirmed beyond a shred of doubt that it should have been Sardar, and not
him, who should have been the first PM of India. For details, please read
the author’s other books ‘Nehru’s 97 Major Blunders’ and ‘Foundations of
Misery: The Nehruvian Era 1947-64’, available on Amazon.
Legal Procedure for the Election
As per the laid down procedure in practice for many decades, only the
Pradesh Congress Committees (PCCs) were the authorised bodies to elect a
president. There were 15 such PCCs They were supposed to send their
nomination to the Congress Working Committee (CWC). The person who
received maximum nominations was elected as President. There being 15
PCCs, at least 8 PCCs had to nominate a specific individual for him or her
to gain the majority to become president.
In 1946, the last date of nominations for the post of the president was 29
April 1946.
Result of the Election : Sardar Won Unopposed
The Congress Working Committee (CWC) met on 29 April 1946 to
consider the nominations sent by the PCCs. 12 of the 15 (80%) PCCs
nominated Sardar Patel{RG/370}; and 3 PCCs out of the 15 (20%) did not
nominate anyone. It therefore turned out to be a non-contest. Sardar Patel
was the only choice, and an undisputed choice, with not a single opposition.
What was noteworthy was that on 20 April 1946, that is, nine days
before the last date of nominations of 29 April 1946, Gandhi had indicated
his preference for Nehru. Yet, not a single PCC nominated Nehru!
Hijacking of the Election by Gandhi–Nehru
Looking to the unexpected (unexpected by Gandhi) development,
Gandhi prodded Kriplani to convince a few CWC members to propose
Nehru’s name for the party president. Gandhians like Kriplani and several
others apparently did not have a mind of their own—they slavishly went by
what their guru, the Mahatma, directed. Kriplani promptly and
unquestioningly complied: He got a few to propose Nehru’s name. Finding
this queer development, Sardar Patel enquired with Gandhi, and sought his
advice. Gandhi counselled him to withdraw his name. Patel complied
promptly, and didn’t raise any question. That cleared the way for Nehru.
The “democratic” Nehru didn’t feel embarrassed at his and Gandhi’s
blatant hijacking of the election, and shamelessly accepted his own
nomination.
Said Kripalani later: “Sardar did not like my intervention.”{RG/371}
Years later Acharya Kripalani had told Durga Das:
“All the P.C.C.s sent in the name of Patel by a majority and one
or two proposed the names of Rajen Babu in addition, but none that
of Jawaharlal. I knew Gandhi wanted Jawaharlal to be President for
a year, and I made a proposal myself [at Gandhi’s prodding] saying
‘some Delhi fellows want Jawaharlal’s name’. I circulated it to the
members of the Working Committee to get their endorsement. I
played this mischief. I am to blame. Patel never forgave me for that.
He was a man of will and decision. You saw his face. It grew year
by year in power and determination…”{DD/229}
Gandhi-Nehru Act : Why Improper?
Gandhi’s actions must be judged in the background of his being a
“Mahatma”, and an “Apostle of Truth and Non-Violence”. As Gandhi had
himself stressed, “non-violence” didn’t have a narrow interpretation as just
lack of violence, but a broad interpretation where things like anger, illegal
and unjust acts also came within the broad definition of violence. What
Gandhi and Nehru manoeuvred was not only illegal, immoral and
unethical, but also against the interest of the nation. Here are the reasons for
the same:
(1) Illegality-1: PCCs alone were authorised to elect the president. There
was nothing in the Congress constitution to permit that rule to be
overturned. How could Gandhi overrule what 15 PCCs had recommended?
On what legal basis? Gandhi’s action was totally illegal.
(2) Illegality-2: Gandhi had resigned from the primary membership of
the Congress back in 1934 to devote himself to “constructive work” (Were
political work and fighting for freedom “destructive”?). Thereafter, he had
never rejoined the Congress. How could a non-member of the Congress like
Gandhi dictate who should be the president of the Congress, or even
participate in CWC meetings?
(3) Unreasonable-1: Did Gandhi put on record his reasons for
overruling the recommendations of the PCCs? No.
(4) Unreasonable-2: Did Gandhi put on record why Patel was not
suitable as the president, and hence the first PM, and why Nehru was a
better choice? No.
(5) Unreasonable-3: Was there a proper, detailed, and threadbare
discussion in the CWC on why Patel was not suited for the post, and
therefore why the recommendations of the PCCs should be ignored? No.
(6) Unreasonable-4: If CWC was not convinced of the
recommendations of the PCCs, why didn’t it refer back the matter to the
PCCs, and ask them to re-submit their recommendations, with detailed
reasoning? The decision could have been postponed.
(7) Against National Interest-1: How could responsibility of such
critical nature be assigned to a person without doubly ensuring that person’s
relative suitability through fair and democratic discussions among all CWC
members, and, of course, finally through voting.
(8) Against National Interest-2: National interests demanded that the
choice of person was dictated not by personal biases, and diktats, but by
suitability, and mutual consensus, and the reasons should have been put on
record.
(9) Dictatorial & Undemocratic-1: How could an individual like Gandhi
dictate who should or should not be the president, and hence the first PM?
And, if that was fine for the Congress, then why the sham of elections, and
votes of the PCCs?
(10) Dictatorial & Undemocratic-2: What kind of freedom “fighters”
we had in the Gandhian Congress that they didn’t even assert their freedom
within the CWC, or show their guts against the slavery of Gandhi, and
voice their opinions? Was an individual Gandhi correct, and were the 15
PCCs wrong?
(11) Unethical-1: Leave apart the legal and other aspects, was it ethical
and moral and truthful for Gandhi to do what he did? If indeed he thought
he was correct, and all others were wrong, the least that was expected from
him was to explain his logic and reasoning. Or, was he above all that? Do
what you want—no questions asked!
(12) Unethical-2: How could a person being nominated for president,
and therefore as the first Indian PM, be so devoid of integrity, fair-play and
ethics as to blatantly be a party to the illegality of throwing the
recommendations of the PCCs into a dustbin, and allowing oneself to be
nominated?
(13) Unembarrassed: Did it not embarrass Nehru that he was usurping a
position undemocratically through blatantly unfair means? Did it behove a
future PM?
(14) Blunder: Overall, it was a blot on the working of the CWC, and on
the CWC members, and particularly Gandhi and Nehru, that they could so
brazenly and irresponsibly commit such a blunder, which ultimately cost the
nation heavy.
Reaction of Stalwarts on the Improper Act
Wrote Rajmohan Gandhi:
“If Gandhi had his reasons for wanting Jawaharlal, the party had
its for wanting Patel, whom it saw, as Kripalani would afterwards
say, as ‘a great executive, organizer and leader’, with his feet on the
ground. The party was conscious too of Sardar’s successful Quit
India exertions, not matched by Jawaharlal.”{RG/370}
DP Mishra had commented: “When we members of the Mahakoshal
PCC preferred him [Patel] to Nehru as Congress President, we had no
intention of depriving Nehru of future Premiership. The younger man had
already been raised to the office of Congress President thrice, and we
therefore thought it just and proper that Patel, the older man, should have at
least a second chance [at Presidency, and thus be the first PM].”{RG/372}
{DPM/185-6}
Dr Rajendra Prasad had stated: “Gandhi has once again sacrificed his
trusted lieutenant for the sake of the glamorous Nehru.”{RG/371}
Wrote Maulana Azad, who had always favoured Nehru over Patel, in his
autobiography: “...Taking all facts into consideration, it seemed to me that
Jawaharlal should be the new President [of Congress in 1946—and hence
PM]. Accordingly, on 26 April 1946, I issues a statement proposing his
name for Presidentship... [Then] I acted according to my best judgement but
the way things have shaped since then has made me to realise that this was
perhaps the greatest blunder of my political life...”{Azad/162}
Maulana Azad also confessed in his above autobiography:
“My second mistake was that when I decided not to stand myself
I did not support Sardar Patel. We differed on many issues but I am
convinced that if he had succeeded me as Congress President he
would have seen that the Cabinet Mission Plan was successfully
implemented. He would have never committed the mistake of
Jawaharlal which gave Mr. Jinnah an opportunity of sabotaging the
Plan. I can never forgive myself when I think that if I had not
committed these mistakes, perhaps the history of the last ten years
would have been different.”{Azad/162}
Wrote Kuldip Nayar: “[Humayun] Kabir [translator and editor of
Maulana Azad's autobiography] believed that Azad had come to realize
after seeing Nehru’s functioning that Patel should have been India’s prime
minister and Nehru the president of India. Coming as it did from an
inveterate opponent of Patel, it was a revelation...A year earlier,
Rajagopalachari had said the same thing...”{KN}
This is what Rajaji, who had then been pro-Nehru, had to say two
decades after the death of Patel in Swarajya of 27.11.1971:
“When the independence of India was coming close upon us and
Gandhiji was the silent master of our affairs, he had come to the
decision that Jawaharlal, who among all the Congress leaders was
the most familiar with foreign affairs [although the Nehruvian years
proved Nehru had made a mess of the foreign policy and external
security], should be the Prime Minister of India, although he knew
Vallabhbhai would be the best administrator among them all…
Undoubtedly it would have been better… if Nehru had been asked to
be the Foreign Minister and Patel made the Prime Minister. I too
fell into the error of believing that Jawaharlal was the more
enlightened person of the two... A myth had grown about Patel that
he would be harsh towards Muslims. That was a wrong notion but it
was the prevailing prejudice.”{RG3/443}
MARCH-JUNE 1946 : CABINET MISSION
Massive public support in favour of the INA soldiers in the INA trials,
and a consequent surge in patriotic fervour and unrest in the army and navy
leading to mutiny, convinced the British they could no longer rely on the
Indian army to continue to rule India, and must pack up.
On 17 February 1946 Lord Pethick-Lawrence announced in the British
Parliament that a Cabinet Mission would be sent to India to discuss Indian
freedom. Prime Minister Clement Attlee told the House of Commons on 15
March 1946: “If India elects for independence she has a right to do so.” The
Raj had, at last, decided to pack up.
A British Cabinet Mission comprising three cabinet ministers—Lord
Pethick-Lawrence, the Secretary of State for India, Sir Stafford Cripps,
President of the Board of Trade, and AV Alexander, the First Lord of the
Admiralty—arrived in India on 23 March 1946 at the initiative of Clement
Attlee, the Prime Minister of the UK, to discuss and plan for the Indian
independence, and the transfer of power to Indian leadership.
Their discussions with the INC (Indian National Congress) and the
AIML (All-India Muslim League) did not yield a common ground
acceptable to both.
16-May-1946 Cabinet Mission Plan
So as to make headway, the Cabinet Mission unilaterally proposed a
plan (what has come to be known as the “16 May Cabinet Mission Plan”),
that was announced by PM Attlee in the House of Commons on 16 May
1946.
The State Paper comprising the Cabinet Mission proposals first stated
why the conflicting demands of the INC and the AIML were not accepted.
The Cabinet Mission Paper stated that even though they appreciated the
anxiety of the League to protect themselves from the perpetual majority
Hindu rule, the AIML’s demand for a separate nation was rejected on the
following grounds:
(a)Pakistan was no solution for the Minority, as, on one hand, it would
leave sizable number of Muslims in “Hindu” India, while, on the other
hand, it would leave sizable number of non-Muslims in Pakistan.
(b)There was no justification in including the predominant non-Muslim
districts of Punjab, Bengal and Assam in Pakistan.
(c)Creation of Muslim-majority Pakistan would necessitate partition of
Punjab and Bengal: something which is contrary to the wishes and
detrimental to the interests of the inhabitants of those provinces.
(d)Division of Punjab would mean division of the Sikh community,
which would be most unjust and unfair to them.
(e)As West Pakistan would be separated from the East Pakistan by
hundreds of miles, their joint administration and defence would be very
challenging.
The main provisions of the “May 16 Cabinet Mission Plan” were as
under:
(1)Independence to be granted to a UNITED dominion of India, which
would be a loose confederation of provinces. AIML’s demand for Pakistan
was turned down.
(2)Central Government at Delhi would handle nationwide affairs like
defence, currency and finance, communications and foreign affairs, while
the rest of the powers and responsibility would belong to the provinces.
(3)British paramountcy over the Princely States would lapse upon
transfer of power; it would NOT be transferred to the new Government,
making them (Princely States) independent. It was hoped the Princely
States would negotiate their way in the Union Government.
(4)To frame the constitution, a Constituent Assembly would be formed
comprising 293 representatives of the Provincial Assemblies (in proportion
to population) and 93 members of the Princely States.
(5)Provincial Legislatures would be grouped as detailed below.
Groupings & the Catch therein
As per the “16 May Cabinet Mission Plan” Provincial Legislatures were
to be grouped as under:
(A)Group-A: Madras, UP, Central provinces, Bombay, Bihar and Orissa.
(B)Group-B: Punjab, Sindh, NWFP, Baluchistan.
(C)Group-C: Assam and Bengal. Assam then included the whole of
Northeast.
Whether the groupings were compulsory or voluntary was left vague.
Did Assam, for example, had a right to opt out of Group-C? This was left
vague.
The grouping, as above, effectively gave weightage to the idea of
Pakistan, even though the Cabinet Mission rejected the demand for a
separate nation of Pakistan. Group-B comprised Muslim-majority
provinces. 22 of the 35 seats were allocated to Muslims in Group-B. Hindu-
majority Assam too came under Muslim-majority Group-C by being
clubbed with Bengal. 36 of the 70 seats in Group-C were allocated to
Muslims. As such, two of the three groups became Muslim-majority
groups.
Compared to what happened upon Partition in 1947 Group-B
represented greater West Pakistan, by including whole of Punjab; and
Group-C represented greater East Pakistan, by including whole of Bengal
plus Assam, and Assam then included the whole of North-Eastern States.
Group-B and Group-C being Muslim-majority groups were effectively
Pakistan.
16-June-1946 Cabinet Mission Plan : Interim Govt.
On 16 June 1946 the Cabinet Mission outlined the procedure for the
formation of the Interim Government: a council of 14 members comprising
6 Congress Hindus (Nehru, Sardar Patel, Rajendra Prasad, Rajaji, Dr HK
Mahtab and Jagjivan Ram), 5 League Muslims (MA Jinnah, Liaquat Ali
Khan, Nawab Mohammad Ismail Khan, Khwaja Sir Nazimuddin, Sardar
Abdur Rab Nishtar), Baldev Singh as a Sikh, NP Engineer as a Parsi and Dr
John Matthai as a Christian.
Jinnah’s Stand
Jinnah was initially reluctant to accept the “16 May Cabinet Mission
Plan” as it did not provide for a separate nation of Pakistan which his
Muslim League had been campaigning for. However, after deliberations
with the British politicians and officials he realised that the provisions for
the Muslims in the “16 May Cabinet Mission Plan” were the best Britain
could offer and the Muslim League could secure, and it would be foolish to
reject it. There were, of course, many Muslims who wondered why they
were led astray with the false promise of a separate nation if the “16 May
Cabinet Mission Plan” was acceptable to the Muslim League. However,
after various clarifications and assurances, Muslim League accepted the “16
May Cabinet Mission Plan” on 6 June 1946; and subsequently it accepted
“16 June Plan” too for the Interim Government. However, the resolution
adopted by the Muslim League on 6 June 1946 reiterated that its unalterable
final objective was to ensure a sovereign State of Pakistan.
Congress Stand
Maulana Azad, the then President of the Congress, finding the proposed
Groupings overall favoured the Muslims, wrote secretly to Viceroy Wavell,
and to the Cabinet Mission, without consulting the CWC, on the possibility
of bringing the Congress around on Groupings. He was also willing to have
no Muslim representative from the Congress side in the government, as
Jinnah had been demanding. Such acts of Azad were like stabs in the back.
Gandhi was so hugely disturbed that he compelled Azad to resign.{BK/242}
The Congress and Gandhi were not comfortable with either of the two
plans of the Cabinet Mission, particularly after the nature of clarifications
given by the Cabinet Mission and Viceroy Wavell on the groupings. They
didn’t accept either plan. Given this situation, Jinnah was on the seventh
heaven, looking forward to be invited to form the interim government.
Patel’s Critical Initiative
However, Patel was determined to thwart the Muslim League and
Jinnah. He was determined he won’t let Jinnah walk away with the trophy.
Given Gandhi’s hang-ups and muddle-headedness, and the confusion and
uncertainty prevailing among the other members of the CWC, including
Nehru, Rajaji, Kriplani, Azad, and others, Patel risked his all and took a
private, personal initiative to negotiate the matter with the British.
Sir BN Rau, a Raj official, called privately on Patel around 20 June
1946. Patel realised that ‘May 16 Plan’ had to be accepted, even with its
flaws, if ‘June 16 Plan’ was to be rejected, for it was the only route to
power, and the only way to scuttle Jinnah. Once in power, the flaws could
be addressed. During the critical period between 22 and 24 June there were
several private discussions between Patel and members of the Cabinet
Mission and Raj officials. Sudhir Ghosh, a go-between for the Raj had
stated: “I told Cripps and Pethick-Lawrence that the only advice I could
give them about salvaging something out of the wreckage was that they
should have a private talk with Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, who was the only
man amongst the Congress leaders who was a practical statesman.”
The ultimate result of Patel’s individual exertions was that the Congress
accepted the ‘May 16 Plan’, while rejecting the ‘June 16 Plan’, even though
Gandhi was not agreeable, and had this to say to the CWC: “I admit defeat.
I cannot advise you to accept the May 16 proposition... But you should
follow my intuition only if it appeals to your reason.”
When Jinnah came to know that the Congress had accepted the
‘May 16 Plan’, while rejecting the ‘June 16 Plan’, he impressed upon
Viceroy Wavell that as the League had accepted both the plans, in all
fairness, the League should be invited to form the Interim Government.
Jinnah was certain that he would be called upon. But, thanks to Patel’s play
of the dice, that didn’t happen.
Jinnah was furious at the proverbial slip between the cup and the lips.
He termed what happened as a deceit of the Congress, and a betrayal of
trust by the Cabinet Mission and the Viceroy, and alleged a secret deal
between Vallabhbhai Patel and the Cabinet Mission.{VT/37}
Rajaji, in a letter to Patel, later conceded that the CWC’s decision of 25
June 1946 to accepted the ‘May 16 Plan’, while rejecting the ‘June 16 Plan’
was “all due to your [Patel’s] firm and thoughtful stand.”
Patel was clear in his goal: bringing the Congress to power, and
scuttling the Muslim League’s strategy of getting inflated share in power.
Thanks to Patel’s initiative and his firm lead, the CWC rejected Gandhi’s
advice. In the national interest, Patel had to defy Gandhi, and he did, and
succeeded in thwarting the formation of Jinnah’s government.
Viceroy Wavell could not help feeling he had been outmanoeuvred by
Patel, and in a letter to King George VI wrote: “Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel is
the recognized ‘tough’ of the Congress Working Committee and by far the
most forcible character amongst them. He is probably the only one of them
capable of standing up to Gandhi.”{VT/37}
During the earlier discussions stage, Wavell had remarked: “Patel’s face
of cold angry disapproval was a study… in khadi, but wearing it more like a
Roman toga, and with rather a Roman face, powerful, clever,
uncompromising, very seldom speaking, but listening with obvious
disapproval.”{BK/249}
The Cabinet Mission left India on 29 June 1946, but before leaving told
the Congress and the League that the ‘June 16 Plan’ was dead; and that in
view of both having accepted the May 16 Plan, a new way forward would
be attempted shortly.
However, Patel manoeuvred to ensure the Congress was invited to form
an interim government (please see below), so that the situation descending
into a chaos could be controlled, and the Muslim League shown its place.
When Jinnah realised he would be left out in the cold, he hurried to ensure
the Muslim League too joined the Interim Government.
July 1946: Nehru’s Monumental Blunder
Thanks to Gandhi, Nehru had become the President of the Congress at
the end of April 1946, and hence the would be first PM. Nehru did a
blunder at the very start of his Presidency. After the AICC ratification of the
CWC’s acceptance of the ‘May 16 Cabinet Mission Plan’ on 25 June 1946,
Nehru remarked at the AICC on 7 July 1946: “…We are not bound by a
single thing except that we have decided to go into the Constituent
Assembly... When India is free, India will do just what she likes…”{Mak/83}
At a press conference in Mumbai 3 days later on 10 July 1946, he
declared that the Congress would be “completely unfettered by agreements
and free to meet all situations as they arise”{Azad/164}, and that “the central
government was likely to be much stronger than what the Cabinet Mission
envisaged.”
Nehru also emphasised that the Congress regarded itself free to change
or modify the cabinet Mission Plan as it thought best.{Azad/165} How could
Nehru talk of unilaterally changing what was mutually agreed upon by the
Congress, the Muslim League, and the British? What then was the sanctity
of the agreement?
Nehru then made controversial remarks on the grouping proposed in the
May 16 Plan.
As it was, Jinnah was under severe pressure from his colleagues and
supporters for having accepted the ‘May 16 Plan’, and thus giving up on an
independent Islamic State of Pakistan. Nehru’s statement gave Jinnah an
excuse to repudiate his earlier acceptance of the Plan, and demand a
separate state of Pakistan.
Nehru’s indiscretion (remarks quoted above) put paid to the scheme of
united India, precipitated Jinnah’s call for Pakistan, and resulted in the
AIML’s ghastly Direct Action. Patel was aghast both by Nehru’s blunder,
and by Jinnah’s momentous decision. Patel wrote to DP Mishra:
“Though President [Nehru] has been elected for the fourth time,
he often acts with childlike innocence, which puts us all in great
difficulties quite unexpectedly. You have good reason to be angry
but we must not allow our anger to get the better of ourselves... He
has done many things recently which have caused us great
embarrassment. His action in Kashmir, his interference in Sikh
election to the Constituent Assembly, his Press conference
immediately after the AICC are all acts of emotional insanity and it
puts tremendous strain on us to set matters right…”{Mak/86}
Maulana Azad called Nehru’s act “one of those unfortunate events
which change the course of history.”{Azad/164}
Wrote Maulana Azad, who had always favoured Nehru over Patel, in his
autobiography: “...Taking all facts into consideration, it seemed to me that
Jawaharlal should be the new President [of Congress in 1946—and hence
PM]. Accordingly, on 26 April 1946, I issues a statement proposing his
name for Presidentship... [Then] I acted according to my best judgement but
the way things have shaped since then has made me to realise that this was
perhaps the greatest blunder of my political life... My second mistake was
that when I decided not to stand myself, I did not support Sardar Patel. We
differed on many issues but I am convinced that if he had succeeded me as
Congress President he would have seen that the Cabinet Mission Plan was
successfully implemented. He would have never committed the mistake of
Jawaharlal which gave Mr. Jinnah an opportunity of sabotaging the Plan. I
can never forgive myself when I think that if I had not committed these
mistakes, perhaps the history of the last ten years would have been
different.”{Azad/162}
Maulana Azad wrote:
“…The Working Committee [CWC] accordingly met on 8
August [1946] and reviewed the whole situation. I pointed out that
if we wanted to save the situation, we must make it clear that the
statement of the Congress President [Nehru] at the Bombay Press
Conference [on 10 July 1946: pl. see above] was his personal
opinion… Jawaharlal argued that he had no objection… but felt that
it would be embarrassing to the organisation and also to him
personally…”{Azad/166}
The Congress tried its best to back-track on Nehru’s statement, and
issued statements reassuring its commitment on ‘May 16 Plan’. But, the
deed was done. Jinnah had got the excuse and the opportunity he wanted.
Perhaps Jinnah also believed that Nehru’s statement exposed the real mind
and intention of the Congress.
However, it was not as if Nehru’s views were wrong (many others too
held similar views), but what was expected of a senior leader was
discretion: when to speak what, and when to keep quiet.
AUG-1946: MUSLIM LEAGUE’S DIRECT ACTION (RIOTS)
Jinnah and the AIML, who were actually averse to the Cabinet Mission
Plan because they wanted a sovereign Pakistan, but had reluctantly gone
along, got a golden opportunity thanks to Nehru’s faux pas (pl. see above),
and exploited it to the hilt. Jinnah contended with the British that Nehru’s
remarks amounted to “a complete repudiation” of ‘May 16 Plan’, and
therefore he expected the British government to invite him, rather than the
Congress, to form a government. In the absence of any action in that respect
from the British government, the Muslim League Council met at Bombay
during 27–30 July 1946. Jinnah took the extreme step: he got the Muslim
League to revoke its acceptance of the ‘May 16 Plan’, and gave a sinister
call for the launch of “direct action to achieve Pakistan”. Asking the qaum
to observe 16 August 1946 as Direct Action Day, Jinnah said on 30 July
1946: “Today we bid goodbye to constitutional methods. Throughout, the
British and the Congress held a pistol in their hand, the one of authority and
arms and the other of mass struggle and non-cooperation. Today we have
also forged a pistol and are in a position to use it… We will have either a
divided India, or a destroyed India.”{BK/250}
The date 16 August 1946 was cleverly chosen. It was a Friday in the
month of Ramzan, on which the Muslims were likely to gather in large
numbers in mosques. Handbills exhorted:
“Let Muslims brave the rains and all difficulties and make the
Direct Action Day meeting a historic mass mobilization of the
Millat.”
Instigated another:
“Muslims must remember that it was in Ramazan that the Quran
was revealed. It was in Ramazan that the permission for jihad was
granted by Allah.”{PF/253}
This is from a pamphlet written by SM Usman, the then Mayor of
Calcutta:
“…By the grace of God, we are crores in India but through bad
luck we have become slaves of Hindus and the British. We are
starting a Jehad in your name in this very month of Ramzan… Give
your helping hand in all our actions—make us victorious over the
Kaffirs—enable us to establish the kingdom of Islam in India… by
the grace of god may we build up in India the greatest Islamic
kingdom in the world…”{Mak/110}
HS Suhrawardy, the then Premier of Bengal, also held the portfolio of
Law & Order. He transferred Hindu police officers from all key posts prior
to 16 August, and ensured that while 22 of the 24 police stations had
Muslims as in-charge, the remaining 2 had Anglo-Indians. Further, to
mobilise large Muslim crowds, he declared 16 August as a public holiday.
Goondas and bad characters were mobilised by the AIML from within the
city and outside to create trouble. While Muslim leaders gave provocative
speeches on 16 August, Suhrawardy crossed all norms for a Premier and
told the gathered mammoth crowd that he had seen to it that the police and
military would not interfere… Suhrawardy even usurped the charge of the
Police Control Room on 16 August. He made sure that any Muslim arrested
for rioting was released immediately! However, after the initial heavy set
back and casualties, once the Hindus and Sikhs began to hit back causing
counter damage, something the AIML had not reckoned, Suhrawardy
promptly called in the army.{Mak/111-15}
The cumulative result of all the above was the Calcutta Carnage, the
Great Calcutta Killings, the worst communal riot instigated by the Muslim
League, that left 5,000 to 10,000 dead, 15,000 injured, and about one lakh
homeless! Like Dyer, the butcher of Jallianwala Bagh Massacre of 1919,
Suhrawardy came to be known as ‘the butcher of Bengal’ and ‘the butcher
of Calcutta’.{Swa1}
Wrote Maulana Azad:
“Sixteen August 1946 was a black day not only for Calcutta but
for the whole of India…. This was one of the greatest tragedies of
Indian history and I have to say with the deepest of regret that a
large part of the responsibility for this development rests with
Jawaharlal. His unfortunate statement that the Congress would be
free to modify the Cabinet Mission Plan reopened the whole
question of political and communal settlement…”{Azad/170}
However, considering the motivations of the AIML, they would have
found some other excuse for the riots, if Nehru had not done what he did.
It was unfortunate that innocent Hindus paid too heavy a price through
numerous communal riots since 1919 for the imagined and doomed Hindu-
Muslim unity and the Muslim-appeasement policies of Gandhi and Nehru,
and for the self-defeating Gandhian non-violence.
2-SEP-1946 : INTERIM GOVERNMENT
Nehru, who had since [most undemocratically] become the Congress
President [thanks to Gandhi’s grossly unethical partiality], was invited by
Viceroy Wavell on 12 August 1946 to form an Interim Government. It was
formed on 2 September 1946. It comprised 7 Congressmen (Nehru, Sardar
Patel, Rajaji, Rajendra Prasad, Sarat Chandra Bose, Jagjivan Ram and Asaf
Ali), 2 non-Congress Muslims (Shafaat Ahmad Khan and Ali Zaheer), and
3 from other minorities (Baldev Singh, John Mathai and CH Bhabha).
Nehru kept the External Affairs ministry, while Sardar headed Home and
Information & Broadcasting.
15-Oct-1946: AIML joins Interim Govt to Wreck it from Within
Rather than acting against the Muslim League for their repudiation of
the Cabinet Mission Plan, followed by their Direct Action Day of 16
August 1946, and inciting the ghastly Calcutta Communal Carnage, Viceroy
Wavell invited the Muslim League to join the Interim Government at the
Centre. The Muslim League, keen to get into power, joined the Interim
Government on 15 October 1946.
Upon League’s entry Sarat Chandra Bose, Shafaat Ahmad Khan and Ali
Zaheer left the ministry; and five Muslim League members became
ministers, which included Liaqat Ali as Finance Minister, and Jogendra
Nath Mandal, a Scheduled Caste Hindu from Bengal (perhaps in revenge of
the Congress retaining a Muslim, Asaf Ali).
With the joining of the League, trouble started, and the government’s
functioning was badly hampered. Indeed, the very purpose of Jinnah for the
Muslim League to join the government was to “wreck it from within”! The
aim of the Muslim League, encouraged and aided by the British, was to
achieve Pakistan by sabotage inside the government, and by Direct Action
(riots), disorder, and chaos outside.
A League nominee in the government, Ghaznafar Ali Khan frankly
admitted: “We are going into the Interim Government to get a foothold to
fight for our cherished goal of Pakistan… The Interim Government is one of
the fronts of Direct Action campaign.”{Jal/227}
Sardar Patel had prophetically remarked to Wavell as early as on 12
June 1946: “Jinnah would only use his position in the Interim Government
for purely communal and disruptive purposes and to break up India”. {BK2/84}
Ministries and departments controlled by the League became like
Muslim jagirs, so much so that it was as if every Muslim officer had
become a guard of the League.
Refused Home Portfolio by Patel, the League snatched Finance, a
critical portfolio, and made Liaqat Ali its head. Nehru did the blunder of
giving the Finance portfolio to Liaqat Ali. Liaqat made full misuse of his
portfolio to choke finance to the Congress ministries, and tighten the screws
on the industrialists financing the Congress—by throwing Nehruvian
socialism in Nehru’s face. The Congress Ministers found to their dismay
that they could not even appoint a peon without an approval from the
Finance Ministry headed by Liaqat Ali. Ministries and departments
controlled by the League became like Muslim jagirs, so much so that it was
as if every Muslim officer had become a guard of the League. The aim of
the Muslim League, encouraged and aided by the British, was to achieve
Pakistan by sabotaging the government from inside, and by Direct Action
(riots), disorder, and chaos outside. They succeeded. Nehru, Patel, and other
Congress Ministers realised it was not possible to run a government with
the Muslim League, and the sooner they got rid of them the better. Perhaps
the only way to do so was Partition and Pakistan, which is what the Muslim
League and the British had conspired for.
OCT–1946: NOAKHALI ANTI-HINDU KILLINGS
The Muslim League’s Direct Action (anti-Hindu attacks) in Calcutta
from 16 August 1946 onwards was extended to Noakhali district in the
Chittagong Division in East Bengal in October 1946. The Muslim
community perpetrated a series of massacres, rapes, abductions and forced
conversions of Hindus, desecration of temples, and looting and arson of
Hindu properties in October-November 1946. The carnage came to be
known as the Noakhali genocide.
What happened in Noakhali was far worse than the Calcutta carnage that
preceded it! About 5000 Hindus were killed, hundreds of Hindu women
were raped, thousands of Hindu men and women were forcibly converted to
Islam, and about 75,000 survivors had to be sheltered in temporary relief
camps, even as about 50,000 Hindus remained marooned in the affected
areas under the cruel Muslim surveillance, needing permits from the
Muslim leaders. Even Jiziya, the Muslim protection tax for Dhimmis, was
levied on Hindus.
Gandhi camped in Noakhali for about four months to restore peace and
communal amity. But, he failed. Despite the hard facts of Muslim atrocities
and carnage, and their practised tradition of bestial attitude against non-
Muslims (Kaffirs) for over a millennia; and what they themselves claimed
to be religion-sanctioned intolerance towards non-Muslims, and spate of
evidence during Gandhi’s own life-time, Gandhi failed to grasp the nature
of Islam as it was practised.
Muslim League leader AK Fazlul Huq, addressing a rally in February
1947, claimed that Gandhi's presence in Noakhali had harmed Islam
enormously, and had created Hindu–Muslim bitterness. Rather than feeling
ashamed of their acts, the Muslims resented Gandhi's stay in Noakhali, and
gradually their opposition to Gandhi assumed vulgar forms, like they began
to dirty the route Gandhi would take. A goat that Gandhi had brought along
with him was stolen by Muslims—they killed, and ate it.
Gandhi himself admitted later that the situation in Noakhali was such
the Hindus should either leave or perish! The question is what did the
Congress as an organisation, and Gandhi as its top leader do for over three
decades that they couldn’t even raise capable, well-organised, well-funded,
and well-equipped self-defence units across the country to save innocents,
considering the recurrence of such cases? Leadership is not mere talking. It
has a responsibility for the safety of people. Gandhi’s advocacy of non-
violent resistance to violence was not only absurd, irrational, and illogical;
it was actually a case of shirking leadership responsibilities.
OCT-1946: NEHRU’S NWFP VISIT—A BLUNDER
Congress had won the elections in NWFP, and Dr Khan Sahib (Khan
Abdul Jabbar Khan), brother of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, was heading the
ministry.
It is worth keeping in mind that in their strategic interests the British had
already decided that the North-West India comprising Punjab, Sind,
Baluchistan and NWFP (please see Group-B above), along with Kashmir
(that bordered either the oil-rich regions to the west, or the communist
USSR) must make Pakistan, for which they were working in cahoots with
Jinnah—something Jinnah knew well; but a critical factor apparently Nehru
and the other Congress leaders like Gandhi were innocent about!
NWFP was another province the Muslim League was targeting along
with Bengal, Assam, Punjab, and Sind. Although the provincial government
of NWFP was in the hands of the Congress, the British Governor Olaf
Caroe, and the local British civil servants, were rabidly anti-Congress, and
pro-Muslim League. Why? They must have been instructed by the HMG to
back the Muslim League and ensure NWFP became part of Pakistan.
Incidentally, Sir Olaf Caroe was the person who authored “Wells of
Power: The Oilfields of South Western Asia, a Regional and Global Study”,
and persuasively wrote an article on Pakistan’s potential role in the Middle
East, and hence Pakistan’s strategic importance for the British. The British
were favouring Jinnah in their own interest.
Like elsewhere, the Muslim League, backed by the British, had been
looking for and exploiting all opportunities to discredit local Muslim
leaders not aligned to the Muslim League, defame them as pro-Hindu and
anti-Muslim, and rouse the local Muslim population against the Hindus.
Negligently, the Congress was doing little to counter the Muslim League
propaganda, or give a befitting reply to their violence. If the Congress was
not doing either of the two, the least it could have done was not to give
ready excuses to the Muslim League to indulge in its game. It was in this
context that the NWFP Chief Minister, Sardar Patel, and others advised
Nehru not to go on a visit to NWFP, which he was planning to do as the
head of the Interim Government. Ignoring wise counsel, Nehru went. Nehru
had the delusion he was very popular—even among Muslims! The results
were predictable. The situation went worse for the local Congress
Provincial Government, and the Muslim League gained an upper hand,
through communal rumour-mongering, and false, skilful propaganda,
backed by the British Governor, and the British officers. The height (or,
rather, the low) of the British Governor Olaf Caroe’s partisan role was
reached when he tried to buy over NWFP Chief Minister Dr Khan Sahib by
assuring him that he would help him and his cabinet colleagues continue as
ministers in Pakistan if they severed their connection with the “Hindu
Congress”!
DEC-1946 ONWARDS: DEVELOPMENTS ON GROUPINGS
The British government invited Viceroy Wavell, Nehru, Patel, Jinnah,
Liaquat and Baldev Singh for talks in London in December 1946 to resolve
issues related to groupings. Patel declined to go, judging well the intentions
of the British. But, Nehru went, even though Patel asked him not to go.
HMG declared there on 6 December 1946 what the Muslim League
wanted: Section-C, that is Bengal, could vote Assam into a Muslim Group
even if Assam wished to keep out; and that NWFP and Sind could be
compelled to join the group dominated by Punjab! That was contrary to the
interpretation of the Congress.
In the AICC meeting on 5 January 1947, the members from Assam
insisted on the Congress keeping its pledge of ensuring that Assam was not
forced into Group-C. They took strong exception to the two major unwise
acts of Nehru that adversely affected the position of Assam: (1)Contrary to
the official Congress statement of 16 May 1946, Nehru had agreed to the
provinces going into groups (also called ‘sections’) in a broadcast on 2
September 1946 upon becoming Vice-President in the Interim Government.
(2)Ignoring wise counsel, Nehru went to London in December 1946, and
indirectly became party to the negative statement of the HMG of 6
December 1946.
Sensing this ominous possibility of Assam being absorbed into East-
Pakistan, Gopinath Bordoloi opposed Assam being clubbed into Group-C,
contrary to what Nehru had agreed to. With Nehru remaining unamenable,
Bordoloi started mass agitation. He fought the Muslim League’s effort to
include Assam and other parts of the Northeast Region (NER) in East
Pakistan.
The Congress Party at the national level, led by Nehru, would have
acquiesced to the Muslim League had it not been for a revolt by Bordoloi,
backed by the Assam unit of the Congress Party.
DEC–1946 : CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY
Even though the Muslim League was part of the Interim Government, it
refused to join the Constituent Assembly (CA). In view of this, and the fact
that the Muslim League had not withdrawn its call for Direct Action, the
Congress and other members asked for the resignation of the Muslim
League members from the Interim Government. As expected, Viceroy
Wavell backed the Muslim League when it countered by saying that it was
the Congress that had not fully accepted the Cabinet Mission Plan, and must
hence be asked to withdraw from the Interim Government! Status quo
remained.
Elections to the Constituent Assembly (CA) were held. CA met for the
first time on 9 December 1946. It elected Dr Rajendra Prasad as the
President, and formed committees to draft different sections of the
Constitution. The Muslim League did not join the CA.
21 December 1946: A Negotiating Committee was formed by the
Constituent Assembly (CA) to deal with a designated body of the Chamber
of Princes on representation of the Princely States in the CA.
Later, on 29 August 1947, the Constituent Assembly set up a Drafting
Committee under the Chairmanship of Dr BR Ambedkar to prepare a draft
Constitution for India.
1947
FEB–1947: ATTLEE’S “QUIT INDIA” DEADLINE DECLARATION
On 20 February 1947 the British PM Clement Attlee announced that
Britain would quit India by June 1948. He also announced: “HMG will
have to consider to whom the powers of the Central Government in British
India should be handed over on the due date, whether as a whole to some
form of Central Government for British India, or in some areas to the
existing provincial governments, or in such other way as may seem most
reasonable and in the best interests of the Indian people.”
The hint was for partition and Pakistan. Former Secretary of State of
India, Samuel John Gurney Hoare, 1st Viscount Templewood, commented
that Attlee’s declaration was an “unconditional surrender, at the expense of
many to whom we have given specific pledges for generations past, which
would lead to a division of India under the worst possible circumstances”
and that it would “imperil the peace and prosperity of India”.{VPM2/340/L-6446}
While Patel maintained his discreet silence on Attlee’s declaration,
intriguingly, Nehru termed it as “wise and courageous”{SG2/337}, even though
it was an invitation to anarchy and chaos, as became apparent very soon.
8 MARCH 1947: PATEL & PARTITION, THE LESSER EVIL
Having experienced the machinations of the Muslim League in the
Interim Government, Sardar Patel rightly concluded it was not possible to
govern the country jointly with the Muslim League then or in future. He
realised the inevitability of the Partition around December 1946, and was
perhaps the first tall Congress leader to do so, apart from CR (Rajaji), who
had expressed such a possibility long ago in 1942. It took Congress another
six months to reach the same conclusion.
VP Menon had outlined to Patel in late December 1946 a scheme of
partition, transfer of power and Dominion Status to which Patel had
responded positively. Partition was to save India from civil war; while the
Dominion Status would ensure the British cooperation in smooth transfer of
power, particularly with the military under their command.
Concluding there would not be peace in united Punjab, and no place for
them, Hindus and Sikhs demanded East Punjab. Seizing the opportunity,
and as a rebuff to the League, Patel promptly agreed to the demand for
partition of Punjab, and of Bengal, by implication. Other Congress leaders
agreed, and on 8 March 1947 the CWC proposed the same. Jinnah and the
Muslim League, who had coveted the whole of Punjab and Bengal as part
of Pakistan, irretrievably lost East Punjab by their ill-thought violent
communal acts. Earlier, on 4 March 1947, Patel had written to Jinnah’s
close friend K Dwarkadas: “If the League insists on Pakistan, the only
alternative is the division of Punjab and Bengal.”{RG/390}
The above initiative for partition taken by Patel came as a bolt from the
blue for Gandhi. Gandhi was not consulted. Wrote Gandhi to Patel: “Try to
explain to me your Punjab resolution if you can. I cannot understand it.”
Responded Patel: “It is difficult to explain to you the resolution on Punjab.
It was adopted after the deepest deliberation. Nothing has been done in a
hurry, or without a full thought. That you have expressed your views
against it, we learnt from the papers. But you are, of course, entitled to say
what you feel right.”{BK2/80}
Patel’s proposal was indeed the only answer to Jinnah demanding
partition, for it meant he would neither get full Punjab, nor full Bengal, and
not Assam either. But for Patel and the resolution he sponsored, the vicious
stalemate that had gone on for too long would not have been broken. Patel
had firmed up his resolve to get as much territory for India as possible, and
to totally frustrate Jinnah’s grand design of a large Pakistan with full
Punjab, full Bengal and Assam—Jinnah ultimately got what he himself
admitted: “moth-eaten Pakistan”{RG3/248}. Patel had also hoped that
confronted with the crumbs of “truncated and moth-eaten Pakistan”, Jinnah
might still desist from demanding partition. It was like catching the bull by
the horns.
Patel got the above resolution passed also to checkmate Gandhi lest he
came up with some harmful appeasement move, or a move of some ‘large-
hearted’ surrender.
Patel had grasped that continued resistance to partition and Pakistan
would only mean further spread of communal strife and riots, cleavages
within even the police force and the army leading to a situation that would
have further favoured Jinnah’s and British interests, and might have led to
whole of Group-B and Group-C (that included all of Punjab, Bengal, and
Assam. Assam then was all of Northeast!) becoming Pakistan.
Back in the sixteenth century, Tulsi Das had given his pearl of wisdom:
“Budh ardh tajain, lukh sarvasa jata”—realising that the whole would go,
the wise surrender half.
In the event, India surrendered only one-fourth, and retained three-
fourth! Although Pakistan had been claiming the whole of Assam, Bengal
and Punjab; India retained the whole of Assam (but for one district), while
forcing partition of Bengal and Punjab.
Sardar Patel was the first prominent Indian leader who agreed to go in
for the partition. The initial concurrence for the Partition was on 10 May
1947. It demonstrated his decisiveness, ability to take unpleasant, but
necessary decisions, and high order of statesmanship. On 11 May 1947,
while Acharya Kripalani confessed, “When we are faced with thorny
problems, and Gandhi’s advice is not available, we consider Sardar Patel as
our leader”{RG/400}; Sarojini Naidu had stated that Sardar Patel was “the man
of decision and the man of action in our counsels”{RG/400}. It was Sardar who
convinced the rest on the wisdom of partition.
The CWC ratified Patel and Nehru’s acceptance of the partition plan on
2 June 1947 by 157 votes to 27, with 32 remaining neutral.
22 MARCH 1947: MOUNTBATTEN ARRIVES
Lord Mountbatten, the new Viceroy, arrived in India on 22 March 1947
and took charge two days later. In the course of his first speech, he said that
his was not a normal viceroyalty. The British Government were resolved to
transfer power by June 1948 and a solution had to be found in a few
months' time.
GANDHI’S 1-APR-1947 OFFER FOR JINNAH
To explore the possibility of averting partition, Gandhi had made the
following proposal to Mountbatten on 1 April 1947: Dissolution of Interim
Government then headed by Nehru. Inviting Jinnah to take over. Allowing
Jinnah to form a cabinet of his choice. If Jinnah ran the government in
India’s interest, the Congress would continue to cooperate with him, and not
use its majority to thwart him. Who would decide if Jinnah was running the
government in India’s interest? Not Congress or Gandhi, but Mountbatten!
Further, Jinnah could continue to advocate Pakistan—but peacefully!!
Absurd proposal! But, that was Mahatma. Who gave authority to
Gandhi to condemn the majority to the mercy of the minority, and the
Muslim League. What were the credentials of Jinnah and the Muslim
League that they could be entrusted with the fate of the majority? Why
would Mountbatten decide whether or not Jinnah was running the
government in India’s interest? Was Mountbatten an impartial observer?
Didn’t he represent India’s tormentors of two centuries? Wasn’t Gandhi
aware that Mountbatten was there to safeguard and advance the interests of
Britain, and not of India? Even assuming Mountbatten was an impartial
observer, was he competent to determine what really was in the interest of
India? Even if he were both impartial and competent, how long was he to
remain in India to act as a referee? What sort of self-respect was it if those
“fighting” for India’s freedom were to depend upon a representative of the
power from whom they were seeking freedom to act as a referee and
adjudicate what was in India’s interest?
Moreover, how could Gandhi propose to give reins of the nation to a
person like Jinnah who had done nothing positive since the 1920s to qualify
for the purpose: he propounded no worthwhile, modernist, or progressive
idea; he adopted a rabidly communal position, and used gross lies to
buttress his arguments; he banded with reactionary, conservative, narrow-
minded Muslim elements; he became a naysayer to all things positive;
never allowed even the crease of his pant and suit to ever get crumpled in
any agitation or movement for freedom; and lived an exclusive, affluent,
selfish life-style, away from masses!
Taken aback by Gandhi’s extraordinary proposal, Mountbatten sought
Gandhi’s permission to discuss the proposal with Nehru and Maulana Azad
in confidence. Gandhi agreed. Mountbatten didn’t include Patel with Nehru
and Azad. He knew Patel would dismiss it as a fantastic nonsense.
Gandhi repeated his proposal to Mountbatten the next day on 2 April
1947. Mountbatten told him he was interested in the proposal when Gandhi
asked him specifically if he supported it. Gandhi advised Mountbatten he
would try to persuade the Congress to accept it, and would tour India for
support.
Shortly after the above meeting, Mountbatten met Maulana Azad, who
not only expressed his approval for Gandhi’s proposal, but was enthusiastic
about it, and encouraged Mountbatten to get Jinnah to accept it. Maulana
Azad generally used to be in favour of anything that gave more weightage
and power to Muslims.
Having favoured Nehru undemocratically—overriding the 80% support
of the PCCs for Patel—with the post of PM, Gandhi had expected to bring
Nehru to his side. Gandhi should have known that a person like Nehru who
unabashedly demanded to be anointed PM most undemocratically—not a
single PCC had voted in his favour—for the sake of power could not be
expected to yield his position to Jinnah. Although Mountbatten deployed
people to talk to Nehru to dissuade him from accepting Gandhi’s plan
should he be so persuaded, the same was really not necessary.
Curiously, Mountbatten never discussed Gandhi’s plan with the person
Gandhi wanted to hand over power to: Jinnah. In a meeting, Mountbatten
had only indirectly mentioned his wish of seeing Jinnah as PM, something
about which Jinnah showed keen eagerness; but Mountbatten did not
deliberate on the matter further.
Gandhi & Co failed to appreciate the simple fact that Mountbatten was
no do-gooder for India, he was HMG’s representative, and HMG had a
vested interest in the partition of India. No wonder Mountbatten would have
exerted his all to ensure Gandhi’s scheme never succeeded.
It makes one’s heart sink, and leaves a bad taste in one’s mouth, to find
that our top freedom fighters were not really fighters, but pleaders with their
adversaries, and dependent on their “good-will”, their “fairness”, their
“sense of justice”, their “commitment to what was good for India”, and
their “empathy” to deliver us in one-piece, and in good shape, from their
clutches!
As expected, Patel had firmly opposed the plan. Patel hated Muslim
appeasement. Being a wise and practical person, Patel also knew that given
the embittered and surcharged atmosphere there was no way Hindus would
tolerate or suffer Muslim rule.
On the evening of 10 April 1947. Nehru, Patel and many members of
the CWC met Gandhi and told him they were opposed to his plan. Only
Badshah Ghaffar Khan supported Gandhi.
On 11 April 1947 Gandhi advised Mountbatten of his defeat vis-à-vis
the plan, and left Delhi.
Rajaji noted in his diary entry on 13 April 1947: “Gandhiji’s ill-
conceived plan of solving the present difficulties was objected to by
everybody and scotched.”{RG3/270}
One wonders why Gandhi didn’t fast-unto-death to prevent partition, if
he indeed so desired. Was it because even if he had fasted Jinnah would not
have bothered? Were his past fasts, like for the Poona Pact, devised only to
browbeat the weak? Or, where the same would be non-risky? He could fast-
unto-death to force the Indian government and Patel to part with rupees 55
crores to Pakistan after independence, knowing they would succumb to save
his life; but not to prevent creation of Pakistan.
MAY-1947 ONWARDS: FREEDOM & PARTITION
May 1947: Mountbatten’s Initial Plan that Failed
Just over a month into his job, Mountbatten prepared a plan for Britain
to quit India, and sent it to London with Ismay and Abell on 2 May 1947.
He moved to Shimla in summer, and invited Nehru there with a view to get
him on his side. On 10 May 1947 Mountbatten received back his plan from
London, revised and approved. Full of hope and enthusiasm, Mountbatten
showed the plan to Nehru.
The outline of the plan was to transfer power to the provinces or groups
of provinces for an interim period, who would then decide whether to join
India or Pakistan or remain independent. Some kind of central authority
would be formed to deal with overall defence. Members of the Legislative
Assemblies of Bengal and Punjab would decide whether or not to partition
their respective provinces. The plan also envisaged holding re-election in
NWFP.
When shown, VP Menon had expressed his disapproval for the plan.
Menon was against giving initial independence to the provinces or to their
groups. A patriot, he had even stated that if the plan was accepted, he would
resign.
Nehru’s reaction to the plan was fortunately negative. Nehru opined the
plan would adversely affect Central Authority, provoke civil conflict and
unrest, and would give a fillip to the Balkanisation of India, resulting in
multiple Ulsters. Having assured London he would bring Nehru over to his
side on the plan (What was the source of his confidence?), Mountbatten
faced deep embarrassment. With his buoyancy punctured, Mountbatten
desperately looked for a way out.
10 May 1947 : Patel Agrees to Partition
Sardar Patel was the first prominent Indian leader who agreed to go in
for the partition. The initial concurrence for the Partition was on 10 May
1947. It demonstrated his decisiveness, ability to take unpleasant, but
necessary decisions, and high order of statesmanship. On 11 May 1947,
while Acharya Kripalani confessed, “When we are faced with thorny
problems, and Gandhi’s advice is not available, we consider Sardar Patel
as our leader”{RG/400}; Sarojini Naidu had stated that Sardar Patel was “the
man of decision and the man of action in our counsels”{RG/400}. It was Sardar
who convinced the rest on the wisdom of partition.
30 May 1947 : Patel Refuses East-West Corridor to Jinnah
Unlike Nehru, Sardar Patel was very firm in his dealings. Writes
Rajmohan Gandhi in his book ‘Patel–A Life’: “Returning from London on
the night of May 30, Mountbatten, in his own words, ‘sent V.P.Menon to see
Patel to obtain his agreement to six months joint control [with Pakistan] of
Calcutta’, which is what Jinnah had been pressing for. The Viceroy
recorded Patel’s reply: ‘Not even for six hours!’ Earlier...Jinnah had
demanded an 800-mile ‘corridor’ to link West and East Pakistan. Patel
called the claim ‘such fantastic nonsense as not to be taken seriously’. It
died a quick and unremembered death.”
June 1947: VP Menon–Mountbatten Plan
VP Menon, the Constitutional Adviser and Political Reforms
Commissioner to the Viceroy, came to Mountbatten’s rescue, and suggested
a way out for the British to transfer power. He gave Mountbatten an outline
for transfer of power that he had prepared earlier, but which was not
favourably seen by the authorities prior to Mountbatten.
Menon’s scheme, prepared in 1946, envisaged transfer of power by the
British to two Central Governments on Dominion basis, and separation of
the Muslim-majority areas from India.
During December 1946–January 1947 Menon had discussed the matter
with Sardar Patel. Menon had opined that a unitary India under the Cabinet
Mission Plan was an illusion; and the proposed 3-tier constitution would be
unwieldy and difficult to work. It was better for the country to be divided
than gravitate towards civil war. Menon had suggested that the best solution
was partition and transfer of power to two central governments based on the
Dominion Status; the advantages being (a)avoidance of civil war;
(b)peaceful transfer of power; (c)greater likelihood of its acceptance in
Britain, particularly by the Conservatives like Churchill on account of the
“Dominion Status”, and membership of the two dominions in the
Commonwealth; (d)continued services of the British bureaucracy and the
British army officers during the transitional period; (e)reassurance to the
Princes on continuity, and better possibility of their peaceful merger with
either of the two dominions; (f)strong central governments for each of the
dominions to guard against centrifugal forces; and (g)facilitation for
framing a constitution unhampered by communal and provincial/regional
considerations. Sardar Patel had given Menon a positive response.
Mountbatten and Nehru broadly agreed with Menon’s outline of the
scheme, and asked him to prepare a draft plan. Knowing that without
Patel’s backing the plan would be a non-starter, Menon sent an advance
copy of the plan to Patel. Patel’s response was expectedly positive, for the
plan had his pre-approval. On Nehru’s hang-ups on membership of the
Commonwealth as a condition in the plan, Patel assured Nehru that he
would take care that the plan was approved by the Congress, provided the
other conditions were met. Patel knew the Commonwealth-condition was
put to satisfy conservatives like Churchill, and obtain their approval for the
passage of the Indian Independence Bill. All that Patel wanted assurance for
was that the British parliament pass a bill to grant independence to India,
and that the British actually quit within two months; and importantly, while
they let the paramountcy for the Indian Princely States lapse, they don’t
interfere or take sides on their merger with India.
Jinnah, as usual, did act difficult, and stipulated additional conditions,
including the wild one like an 800-mile corridor to link East and West
Pakistan; but his tantrums didn’t work, and he had to ultimately agree to
what Mountbatten (or rather, VP Menon) had proposed, and what the
Congress was agreeable to. Why that change in Jinnah? With their goal
(Pakistan) achieved, Jinnah’s mentors in London like Churchill (who had
propped him up to get Pakistan as it was in the strategic interests of the
British) conveyed to him to not act difficult any more, as he couldn’t get
more than what was on offer.
Apprehensive that Gandhi may yet come in the way of the partition
plan, Mountbatten personally met Gandhi to explain the position. Gandhi
accepted the position.
2 June 1947 : CWC Ratification of Partition Plan
The CWC ratified Patel and Nehru’s acceptance of the partition plan on
2 June 1947 by 157 votes to 27, with 32 remaining neutral. Sardar Patel
delivered a key note address at the CWC as under:
“I fully appreciate the fears of our brothers from [the Muslim-
majority areas]. Nobody likes the division of India and my heart is
heavy. But the choice is between one division and many divisions.
We must face facts, cannot give in to emotionalism and
sentimentality. The Working Committee has not acted out of fear.
But I am afraid that all our toil and hard work of these many years
might go waste and prove unfruitful. My nine months in office have
completely disillusioned me regarding the supposed merits of the
Cabinet Mission Plan. Except for a few honourable exceptions,
Muslim officials from top to bottom are working for the League.
The communal veto given to the League in the mission plan would
have blocked India’s progress at every stage. Whether or not we like
it, de facto Pakistan already exists in Punjab and Bengal. Under the
circumstances I would prefer a de jure Pakistan which may make
the League more responsible. Freedom is coming. We have 75 to 80
% of India, which we can make strong with our genius. The League
can develop the rest of the country.”{RG/403}
3 June 1947 : Mountbatten announced the Partition Plan
On 3 June 1947, Mountbatten announced the Partition Plan: Power to
be relinquished to the two Governments of India and Pakistan on the basis
of Dominion Status by 15 August 1947, much earlier than the original date
of June 1948. In regard to the Princely States, the plan laid down that the
policy of His Majesty's Government towards the Indian Princely States
contained in the Cabinet Mission memorandum of 12 May 1946 would
remained unchanged—the British paramountcy would lapse, and their
status would revert to what it was before.
On the night of 3 June 1947, Nehru, Jinnah and Baldev Singh on behalf
of the Congress, AIML, and Sikhs respectively aired their acceptance of the
VP Menon-Mountbatten Partition Plan. Jinnah was not happy with the
truncated Pakistan that he was getting, but when Mountbatten firmly told
him he could get no more, and that the only alternative was united India,
Jinnah agreed.
Mountbatten wrote to his mother on 14 June 1947: “I must stress the
importance of Patel in the agreements so far reached. He has a rough
exterior and an uncompromising manner… he has never wavered and has
stood firm against inner voices and neutral indecisions that have sometimes
afflicted his colleagues. Patel’s realism has also been a big factor in the
acceptance of the Dominion Status formula.”{BK/293}
14 June 1947 AICC Meet to Ratify Partition, backed by Gandhi
Although Gandhiji had hang-ups, most of the top leadership of the
Congress had realised the inevitability of the Partition. Gandhiji had told
the CWC on 2 June 1946 when it took the decision in favour of Partition
that although he disagreed, he will not stand in the way. Gandhi had earlier
commented: “Today I find myself all alone. Even the Sardar and Jawaharlal
think that my reading is wrong and peace is sure to return if partition is
agreed upon... They did not like my telling the Viceroy that even if there
was to be partition, it should not be through British intervention... They
wonder if I have not deteriorated with age.”{RG/401}
Patel had himself admitted: “For several years, Gandhi and I were in
perfect agreement. Mostly we agreed instinctively; but when the time for a
big decision on the question of India’s independence came, we differed. I
felt that we had to take independence there and then. We had, therefore, to
agree to partition. I came to this conclusion after a great deal of heart-
searching and with a great deal of sorrow. But I felt that if we did not accept
partition, India would be split into many bits and completely ruined.”{ISS1}
{NS/90}
Gandhi’s role as a guide, or the one with a veto-power, had ended long
back. Much earlier when he had expressed his wish to quit, none in the
CWC had asked him not to do so.
Gandhi told Durga Das in 1946: “When I met him [Gandhi], he said
there was too much deceit all round and added that Patel and Rajen Babu
(Rajendra Prasad) had ceased to be his ‘yes man’.”{DD/226}
But, Gandhi had finally acquiesced to the Partition. Perhaps he also took
into account the alternate consequence Patel reportedly talked of: “It is a
question of civil war or partition. As for civil war, no one can say where it
will start and where it will end. True, the Hindus might win in the end but
only after paying an unpredictable and huge price.”{RG/401}
Indeed, the Muslim League call for Pakistan and partition could only
have been resisted if the Congress was prepared for a strong, sustained
retaliatory violence, and a long drawn-out communal strife in cities, towns
and villages. However, that was apparently beyond the Congress leadership
brought up on Gandhian non-violence. The Congress leadership was
incapable of American style civil war. If Netaji Subhas had been there, one
could have thought about it.
It is also worth noting that the Hindus and Sikhs of East Punjab and the
Hindus of West Bengal had openly demanded partition. Gandhiji had
himself admitted in his prayer meeting on 10 June 1947 that as “non-
Muslim India is overwhelmingly in favour of partition”, he “could not
coerce public opinion.”{RG/401}
The AICC met on 14 June 1947 to consider and ratify the CWC decision
in favour of partition. There were voices against the partition. When Nehru
and Patel failed to persuade some members, Gandhi intervened and
appealed to members to support the CWC and its decision for partition, in
the absence of an alternative. Gandhi advised that political realism
demanded acceptance of the Mountbatten Plan, and acceptance of the
partition-resolution moved by Pandit Govind Ballabh Pant. While 29 voted
for the resolution, 15 voted against—notwithstanding Gandhi’s appeal to
vote in favour of the resolution.{Azad/215}
A senior leader who stood out against partition, and voted against the
Pant resolution, was Purshottamdas Tandon. He stated he was prepared to
suffer the British rule a little longer than pay the heavy price of partition.
He claimed the Nehru government had been intimidated by the Muslim
League. He got a huge applause when at the end of his speech he said: “Let
us fight both the British and the [Muslim] League.”{DD/248}
Wrote Maulana Azad: “…Gandhi’s conversion to the Mountbatten
[Partition] Plan had been a cause of surprise and regret to me. He now
spoke openly in the Working Committee [CWC] in favour of
partition.”{Azad/210}
14-15 August 1947
14 August 1947: Pakistan Independence Day.
15 August 1947: Indian Independence Day.
{ 3 }
THREE MAJOR GANDHIAN MOVEMENTS
First Phase of Gandhian Struggle: 1919-1922
KHILAFAT & NON-COOPERATION MOVEMENT (KNCM)
I have nothing to do with this pseudo-religious approach
that Gandhi is advocating.
― Muhammad Ali Jinnah
KHILAFAT (CALIPHATE) & KHALIF (CALIPH)
Khalifah or Khalifa or Khalif or Caliph (Caliph is the corrupted version)
is supposed to be the supreme religious and political leader of all Muslims
around the world. The word is derived from the Arabic ‘Khalf’, which
means successor. What the Khalifa or Caliph rule over is called the
Caliphate or Khilafat.
The Ottoman Empire, with its capital in Istanbul (Constantinople),
Turkey, ran a Caliphate or Khilafat. It was founded in 1299 CE. During its
history, the Empire grew to include many areas in Europe. At its peak in
1595, the Ottoman Empire covering a massive 20 million square kilometres
included the areas of Turkey, Egypt, Greece, Bulgaria, Romania,
Macedonia, Hungary, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and parts of the
Arabian Peninsula and North Africa. However, at the beginning of World
War I in 1914, the Ottoman Empire comprised the areas that are currently
Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Iraq, Kuwait, Yemen, and
parts of Saudi Arabia, including Mecca.
Armenian Genocide
Details in Chapter-1.
DEFEAT OF THE OTTOMANS IN WW-I & ITS CONSEQUENCES
Upon defeat of the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary,
Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire) in World War I (28 July 1914 – 11
November 1918) by the Allied (or Allies) Powers (British Empire, US,
France, Belgium, Italy, Russia, Romania, Serbia and others), the US
President Woodrow Wilson called for the principle of self-determination for
post-war reorganization of the territories formerly controlled by the
Ottoman Empire.
The various countries that were carved out from the Ottoman Empire
after its defeat in World War I were as follows: Yemen in 1918, Jordan in
1921, Turkey in 1923, Iraq (Mesopotamia) in 1932, Lebanon in 1943, Syria
in 1946, Israel in 1948, and Kuwait in 1961. Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was
formed in 1932. It included Mecca which had been under the Ottomans.
KHILAFAT & OTHER MUSLIM COUNTRIES
With the defeat of the Ottomans in World War I, an outcry on behalf of
the caliphate was raised by the Khilafatists’ (those who supported Khilafat)
to restore the institution of Caliphate. It implied restoring the pre-war status
for the Ottomans. But, why would a defeated empire be given that
privilege?
Besides, it would have meant re-imposition of the Ottoman rule over
Arabs, Egypt, and so on—something those Muslim countries least wanted,
for they desired their own independent existence. Significantly, the Arabs
and the Egyptians and the Muslims of other countries did not shed a tear at
the demise of the Ottoman Empire
KHILAFAT & INDIAN MUSLIMS
In sharp contrast to the Muslims of other countries like Egypt and
Arabs, the Indian Muslims, especially the Sunni elites, decided to make a
huge hue and cry about it. One of the reasons for this was that to protect the
Ottoman empire from external threat and possible dismemberment, and to
also crush the internal political problem caused by the growing democratic
influence and democratic opposition at home, Abdul Hamid II (1842–
1918), the Ottoman emperor, had launched his Pan-Islamic program. As a
part of the same, he had sent an emissary, Jamaluddin Afghani, to India in
the late 19th century. The Caliphate cause evoked religious passion and
sympathy amongst Indian Muslims. Abdul Hamid II was succeeded by his
brother Mehmed VI (1861–1926).
Thanks to the ground prepared for it, as mentioned above, and the
activism of people like the Oxford-educated Muslim journalist, Maulana
Muhammad Ali, his brother, Maulana Shaukat Ali, and many others,
including Dr Mukhtar Ahmed Ansari, Hasrat Mohani, Maulana Abul Kalam
Azad, Dr Hakim Ajmal Khan, the All India Khilafat Committee was
formed. They published the Khilafat Manifesto in 1920 calling upon the
British to protect the caliphate, and exhorting the Indian Muslims to unite
and hold the British accountable on that count.
Earlier, in 1912, during the Balkan wars, the Indian Muslims had sent a
medical mission to Turkey headed by Dr MA Ansari.
Maulana Muhammad Ali wanted Sir Syed Ahmad’s Mahomedan Anglo-
Oriental College (later AMU) to severe its links with the Raj in protest.
When the College rebuffed the Khilafatists many students walked out,
leading eventually to the foundation of Jamia Millia Islamia in 1920 in
Delhi, at the initiative of the Khilafat leaders like Dr Ansari, Maulana
Azad, Hakim Ajmal Khan and others.{Akb/135}
The Muslim middle-class was not troubled so much by what was
happening in their own country of residence, that is, India, than by what
was happening to the Muslim countries in the Middle East ‘thanks to the
conspiracy of Christendom against Islam!{Nan/181}
Thousands of Indian Muslims even migrated to Afghanistan—such was
the fanaticism. King Amanullah of Afghanistan had to persuade their
leaders to abandon the movement. Following the same, most returned to
India thoroughly upset.
It was queer that the Muslim educated class, and even the illiterate ones,
were more concerned about the extra-territorial issue of Khilafat than about
the gaining of freedom from the British in India! What was even more
curious was that while the Muslims of the regions who had been under the
Ottomans actually sought freedom from them, the Indian Muslims
effectively wanted their slavery to continue! Indeed the Mughals never
acknowledged the temporal authority of the Caliphate of the Turkish Sultan.
Even Sir Syed Ahmad, the originator of the idea of Muslims as a separate
nation and the founder of AMU, had never acknowledged the Caliphate.
Another interesting aspect was that a large number of Muslim soldiers in
the British-Indian army had fought against the army of Khalifa in WW-I.
Stand of Jinnah & Agha Khan
Jinnah was against the Khilafat Movement, and had advised against
supporting fundamentalist elements. Agha Khan and his companions
remained loyal to the British. The Muslim League and the Hindu
Mahasabha had opposed the Khilafat Movement.
GANDHI & KHILAFAT
Khilafat Movement began with the celebration of ‘Khilafat Day’ on 27
October 1919. Gandhi was elected as President of the All-India Khilafat
Conference at Delhi on 24 November 1919, and said in his presidential
address: “It ought not to appear strange for the Hindus to be on the same
platform as the Muslims in a matter that specially and solely affects the
Muslims. After all, the test of friendship is true assistance in adversity and
whatever we are, Hindus, Parsis, Christians or Jews, if we wish to live as
one nation, surely the interest of any of us must be the interest of all… We
talk of Hindu-Muslim unity. It would be an empty phrase if the Hindus hold
aloof from the Muslims when their vital interests were at stake.”{Akb2/237}
Gandhi supported the Khilafat movement and worked out an alliance of
the Congress with the Khilafat leaders in 1920. Together they launched a
nationwide non-cooperation movement, and a campaign of mass, peaceful
civil disobedience.
Gandhi failed to appreciate that Khilafat was a moribund institution; and
that those under it were themselves sick of it. Further, many Arab and non-
Arab regions were straining to throw off the yoke of the Ottoman Empire.
Why fight for what many Middle-East Muslims themselves wanted dead?
Gandhi returned the medals the British Raj had given for his services in
South Africa. The ‘Apostle of Non-violence’ returned the Kaiser-i-Hind
Gold Medal to Viceroy Lord Chelmsford on 1 August 1920. Stating his
reasons for returning the medals, Gandhi wrote to Viceroy Chelmsford: “…
Events have happened during the past month which have confirmed me in
the opinion that the Imperial Government have acted in the Khilafat matter
in an unscrupulous, immoral and unjust manner and have been moving
from wrong to wrong to defend their immorality. I can retain neither respect
nor affection for such a government...”
The ‘Apostle of Non-Violence’ also returned the Zulu War Medal and
the Boer War Medal earned by him from the British for help in the British
wars against the native Zulus and Boers in South Africa. Gandhi was a rare
fighter against the tormentors of Indians on whom the tormentors conferred
medals!
Gandhi could return his medals in favour of the regressive cause of
Khilafat against which the democratic Turks led by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk
were themselves fighting! However, Gandhi, who talked of non-violence at
the drop of a hat, didn’t think Jallianwala massacre of a year before was
reason enough to return his war medals!
Mahatma Gandhi’s logic, or rather the ‘Mahatman Logic’, was never a
logic that we normally understand as logic. It was a class all its own—
unembarrassed by its inconsistency, ‘lack of logic’, and absurdity. Yet,
people and other leaders indulged him; and he in turn kept indulging more
and more in his ‘Mahatman Brand of Logic’. Subsequent paras on the
Khilafat below would further bring this out, particularly in the context of
Kemal Atatürk’s stand.
APPROVAL OF NON-COOPERATION AT CONGRESS SESSIONS IN 1920
In a special Congress session in Calcutta during 4–9 September 1920,
the Congress, at the instance of Gandhi, adopted non-cooperation for the
sake of Khilafat and other matters by a narrow margin of 144 against 132.
The then Congress stalwarts like Chittaranjan Das, Motilal Nehru, Bipin
Chandra Pal, Lala Lajpat Rai were initially cool towards the proposal.
However, Annie Besant, Madan Mohan Malaviya and Jinnah refused to
endorse Gandhi on the proposal. The session saw the emergence of young
leaders like C Rajagopalachari, Vallabhbhai Patel, Rajendra Prasad, Abul
Kalam Azad, and Jawaharlal Nehru.
In the session, Gandhi promised Swaraj within 12 months of the launch
of the non-cooperation movement! In fact, much later, at a conference in
September 1921, Gandhi went to the wild extent of saying that he was “so
sure of getting Swaraj before the end of the year [in the next 3-4 months,
that is!]” that he “could not conceive of himself as living beyond December
31, without having won Swaraj.”
Many of the leaders who had opposed Gandhi’s non-cooperation
proposal came around at the Nagpur session of Dec-1920.
KNCM GATHERS STEAM
Gandhi had not yet become the mass leader; and the massive
spontaneous response of the masses, without much efforts at mobilisation,
startled and overwhelmed him and the other organisers. To say that it was
Gandhi who made the independence movement a mass movement is
therefore erroneous—the masses were restive and ready for a long time, and
were pining for relief and freedom, thanks to the various economic factors,
and the tremendous sacrifices made by earlier freedom fighters and
revolutionaries. In fact, overwhelmed by the response, Gandhi wanted to
tone it down.
1920 saw over 200 strikes involving over 15 lakh workers. KNCM
showed no signs of abating, and by the end of 1921 over 30,000 were in
British jails, including all the top Congress leaders. To dissuade people,
flogging in the jails became a common practice. However, people wanted to
further intensify the agitation. The AICC passed a resolution on 4
November 1921 to start additionally a civil disobedience campaign
throughout India. Many in the Congress and in the Khilafat Movement felt
Gandhi was not going far enough—they wanted intensification in the
movement through mass civil disobedience spread all across the country.
However, Gandhi wanted to play it small, and snubbed those who wanted a
more wide-spread action, with his trade-mark non-violence condition.
Gandhi was appointed “dictator” of the movement—a term Gandhi
loved. Gandhi was, by nature, undemocratic. His “dictatorship” cost his
followers and India dear as would be obvious from the subchapter below.
Nine months into the movement at its peak, Gandhi recalled his promise
at the Congress Calcutta session of September 1920 of getting Swaraj
within 12 months of the launch of the non-cooperation movement, and
wrote in ‘Navajivan’ of 12 October 1921: “I should not like to remain alive
next year if we have not won swaraj by then. I am, in that event, to be
pained so deeply that this body may perish—I would desire that it should.”
Gandhi’s was a wishful thinking. There was no serious thought, no
discussions with the colleagues, no planning, no strategy, no tactics, no
guidance, no ground-rules! In fact, there was a pattern to it. It was one of
Gandhi’s life-long tendencies not to consult colleagues on most vital issues.
He relied on “divine guidance”, and once he had that, he acted dictatorial—
and often wrong. Even the most ambitious “Quit India” movement of
Gandhi of 1942 was on similar lines—lots of talk and show, but no
planning! Only the Salt Satyagraha of 1930 was well-planned, and that was
thanks to Sardar Patel, and not because of Gandhi.
GANDHI’S INEXPLICABLE CALLING-OFF OF KNCM!
Inexplicably, undemocratically and unilaterally, Gandhi suddenly
suspended the non-cooperation movement on 12 February 1922, without
consulting any of the stakeholders, including the Muslim leaders of the
Khilafat Movement. Gandhi once again demonstrated his despotic
tendencies. The reason, or the excuse, was the perishing of 23 policemen
when the Chauri Chaura Police Station in the Gorakhpur district of UP was
set on fire in a retaliatory violence on 4 February 1922. Police had arrested
leaders of a group picketing a liquor shop in the market place. In protest, a
crowd gathered in front of the police station shouting slogans. The police
opened fire into the crowd killing three and wounding several. Angered by
the unprovoked firing, the protestors set fire to the police station, killing the
policeman as a result.
At the time Gandhi was over 800 miles away in Bardoli in Gujarat. So,
linking his agitation to the incident was far-fetched. Further, in a big
country like India where the British freely resorted to unjust acts,
exploitation, violence, firing, and humiliation of the natives, such incidents
were bound to occur.
Yet, Gandhi declared that his followers had sinned against God; and to
continue the campaign would be to follow Satan. Satanic acts of the British
didn’t matter. But, stray violence, and that too only retaliatory violence, of
some groups—that was bound to occur in a country as big as India—did
seem to matter for Gandhi. And, if it did, why lead a freedom movement?
Rather, sit like a sanyasi in some temple or monastery. Gandhi even went on
a five day fast to purify himself, and withdrew from all Satyagraha
activities.
Given Gandhi’s almost unimplementable conditions of absolute non-
violence anywhere in India in the cause of freedom, the British must have
been congratulating themselves for the insurance they had through Gandhi
against ever departing from India—Gandhi must have seemed to them to be
God-sent!
As usual, Gandhi offered his typical Mahatman Brand absurd rationale,
illogical logic, and unreasonable reason: “The drastic reversal of practically
the whole of the aggressive programme may be politically unsound and
unwise, but there is no doubt that it is religiously sound.”{CWMG/Vol-26/178} Had
Gandhi informed the participants in advance that he was on a religious,
rather than a national or political, mission? Did anyone question Gandhi as
to what particular passage of which scripture of which religion, or what
religious tradition, prescribed abandoning freedom struggle in the face of
minor retaliatory violence, that may be less than 0.0001% of what the
opposite party (the British, in this case) may be unleashing? Had Gandhi
not read Gita? Gandhi could have espoused his crazy ideas in his personal
field, but to turn absolute non-violence into a one-way creed of the victim
and the violated, while the opposite party used violence freely, was not only
politically unwise and impractical, it was also religiously immoral and
unethical. In short, Gandhi’s act was both politically and religiously
unsound and indefensible.
The actual reason perhaps was that Gandhi was overawed by the
increasing tempo of the struggle, and found himself unprepared to handle it.
He had never really thought through the whole thing, and determined the
ultimate goal. Nor had he planned for the eventuality. His was an
unplanned, incremental thinking. Not being a team-player, he had not cared
to discuss and plan with the colleagues. Gandhi was not all-out anti-British.
He only looked forward to some incremental concessions, acceptance of his
leadership, and space for himself, and his group. He was not ready to drive
out the British, and go in for self-rule. He was therefore looking for an
excuse, a face-saving device, to end the agitation. Chauri Chaura came to
his rescue. If Chauri Chaura had not happened, he would have clutched at
something else. On the untenable plea of violence in a far-away place he
called off the agitation. He deliberately did not consult anyone, for he knew
others would vehemently oppose him. Despotic that he was, he unilaterally
took the decision.
What is noteworthy is that rattled by the agitation, in which thousands
were in jail (except Gandhi), the British were about to yield. Had Gandhi
stood firm, and not withdrawn the agitation, the Raj would have offered
conciliatory terms. But, Gandhi’s sudden and cowardly withdrawal put paid
to all hopes. It is not widely realised, but the stark fact (as would be brought
out in this book also) is none of Gandhi’s big agitations whether in South
Africa or in India was ever successful!
228 people were arrested and tried for the Chauri Chaura incident in
which 23 Policemen perished. While 6 died in police custody, 172 were
sentenced to death! Did Gandhi protest against the disproportionate
punishment? The Communist leader MN Roy labelled it as “legalised
murder”{Roy2}, and called for a general strike of workers. Reviewing the
verdict, the Allahabad High Court sentenced 19 to death, and 110 to life-
imprisonment on 20 April 1923. In sharp contrast, none were punished for
the Jallianwala Bagh massacre by the “impartial” British justice system—
Dyer was hailed and rewarded. Did Gandhi raise a voice?
The British were not foolish like Gandhi. Once they realised that Gandhi
had become unpopular both with Muslims and Hindus for withdrawing the
agitation, and arresting him would not lead to any protests, they promptly
arrested him on 10 March 1922, and sentenced him to six years of
imprisonment. However, he was released after mere two years in February
1924 on grounds of ill health.
Even if one grants Gandhi his indefensible logic of calling off the
agitation on account of the violence, the question is why didn’t he do so
earlier in the face of far more ghastly violence? Reference is to the terrible
Moplah Anti-Hindu Attacks of August-September 1921 in the Malabar
region of Kerala (please see details elsewhere in this book). Chauri Chaura
violence of February 1922 was not even 1% of Moplah Anti-Hindu Attacks
earlier of August-September 1921, while both were in the context of the
KNCM.
Under the camouflage of non-violence, withdrawal of KNCM actually
amounted to betrayal of the freedom movement, because ‘Swaraj’ too was
one of the aims of the KNCM.
REACTIONS TO GANDHI’S WITHDRAWAL OF KNCM
General Reaction
The decision shocked, stunned and humiliated over 30,000 who were in
Raj’s prisons thanks to Gandhi. Many sent him angry letters. Many like
Rajaji saw a near victory turning into a dark defeat. CR Das, then lodged in
Alipore jail, felt distraught at Gandhi’s “repeated bungling”{Gill/47}. Mahadev
Desai, Gandhi’s secretary then lodged in Agra jail, stated that the news had
“absolutely unhinged”{SLM/165} {Gill/47} him.
Ali Brothers
The Ali brothers disapproved of Gandhi’s move, and severed their ties.
Many Muslims felt Gandhi had betrayed Khilafat by suspending the
movement.
Jinnah
Jinnah denounced Gandhi for causing schism and split “not only
amongst Hindus and Muslims, but between Hindus and Hindus, and
Muslims and Muslims, and even between fathers and sons…”.{Jal/8}
Romain Rolland
“It is dangerous to assemble all the forces of a nation and to hold the
nation panting before a prescribed movement, to lift one’s arm to give the
final command, and then at the last moment, let one’s arm drop and thrice
call a halt just as a formidable machinery has been set in motion. One risks
ruining the brakes, and paralysing the impetus.”{Nan/237}
Sardar’s Stand
Sardar Patel was sceptical about Gandhi’s Khilafat move. He considered
it absurd Indians fighting for those in faraway land when they needed to
first free themselves from the British slavery; although the opportunity it
provided for a joint Hindu-Muslim struggle to wrest power from the British
did appeal to him, and to many other Hindu leaders. Left to himself, Patel
was a highly rational person, but associated with Gandhi, he followed the
same, inexplicable Gandhian path. Sardar was unhappy and disagreed with
Gandhi’s decision of suspension of the movement on account of the Chauri
Chaura incident, though he didn’t voice an open disagreement.
Netaji Subhas Bose
“To sound the order of retreat just when the public enthusiasm was
reaching the boiling point was nothing short of national calamity.”{Bose/82}
Jawaharlal Nehru
“We were angry when we learnt of this stoppage of our struggle at a
time when we seemed to be consolidating our position and advancing on all
fronts… (Nehru(1), p. 87) Our mounting hopes tumbled to the ground…
Must we train the three hundred and odd millions of India in the theory and
practice of non-violent action before we could go forward?... If this was the
sole condition of its function, then non-violent method of resistance would
always fail…”{Gill/47}
Lala Lajpat Rai
“…To change the heart of mobs in such a way as to make it impossible
for them to indulge in such brutalities without changing the hearts of
governments that rule over them, is an impossibility… Leaders of political
campaigns for freedom cannot afford to wear their hearts on their
sleeves…”{Gill/47}
CF Andrews
“…The immediate consequence of this act of Mahatma Gandhi was
profound dismay… there was a depression all over the country which could
everywhere be felt. When I went in and out of villages, I found that the
discouragement had penetrated the country as well as the cities…”{Gill/47}
SACRIFICE DOWN THE DRAIN
Leading Indian lawyers like Vallabhbhai Patel, C Rajagopalachari, Dr
Rajendra Prasad, Motilal Nehru, CR Das, and many more had given up
their lucrative practice. Hundreds of government employees had resigned
from service, and had participated in the cause of freedom. While their
lives, and that of their families, were ruined, they had no compensatory
satisfaction in having achieved something. Careers of thousands of students
who had left their studies in sheer enthusiasm were pointlessly spoiled.
Many who had given up their legal practice were left wondering at the lack
of wisdom of their act. Thousands faced police savagery, and rotted in jails.
All their sacrifice went not in getting freedom for the country, but in
being guinea pigs in Gandhi’s experiment with the Gandhian faddism and
misconception of non-violence.
CALIPHATE, ATATÜRK & GANDHI’S INDEFENSIBLE STAND!
The height of irony was that while Gandhi and the Indian Khilafat
Committee poured venom during 1920-22 against the British for destroying
the Caliphate, the Caliph (Mehmet Vahideddin) himself (facing local
opposition, and after his royal band deserted him), had written to the British
General Sir Charles Harington on 16 November 1922 seeking British
protection and refuge, as his life was in danger.{Akb2/141}
The second irony came in 1924 when Caliph’s compatriots themselves
overthrew him—the Khilafat Movement lost its raison d'être when the
forces of the young, dynamic, revolutionary military officer Mustafa Kemal
Atatürk (1881-1938: the surname, Atatürk, meaning “Father of the Turks”,
was granted to him in 1934 and forbidden to any other person by the
Turkish parliament), leader of the Turkish National Movement in the
Turkish War of Independence, overthrew the Ottoman rule, abolished the
role of Caliph, and established a modern, secular republic in independent
Turkey in 1924, after his victories in 1922 and the Treaty of Lausanne of
1923. In March 1924, Atatürk formally abolished the Caliphate (Khilafat)
and expelled the Caliph/Sultan from Turkey.
Kemal destroyed the Pan-Islamic movement by deposing the Sultan and
abolishing the Caliphate. He thus effectively cut the ground from under the
feet of the Khilafists in India, including Gandhi. Ataturk modernized
Turkey—he created a secular republic, did away with Ottoman religious
foundations and paraphernalia, and banned veil and fez. Jinnah then (late
1920s, 1930s) had “became a fan of the Turk [Mustafa Kemal Ataturk] who
first saved and then reformed his country. Jinnah told his sister that if he
ever got as much power as Ataturk he would westernize Indian
Muslims.”{Akb2/245}
It is said that Gandhi supported the Khilafat Movement to bring about
Hindu-Muslim unity, and to garner the support of the Muslims for national
freedom. But, Gandhi’s position is questionable on several counts.
Gandhi, the ‘Apostle of truth’, was not really supporting a just and
truthful cause. There was no Islamic canon that only the Sultan of Turkey
could be the Khalifa. The Sultan was actually garnering support for his
personal vested interest: to continue his oppressive, feudal rule.
As BR Nanda wrote:
“He [Gandhi] failed to see that the Khilafat was a moribund
institution, that the Turks themselves were sick of it, that the
Ottoman Empire could no more remain intact after the war than the
Hapsburg Empire, and that smaller nations, Arab and non-Arab,
were struggling to be free from the stranglehold of Turkey.”{Nan/185}
That the Ottoman’s Khalifa rule was oppressive became obvious when
another Muslim, Mustafa Kemal, deposed him, ended caliphate, and
ushered a forward-looking, modern, secular rule in Turkey. He effectively
demonstrated that Khilafat was a wrong cause!
Why bring about Hindu-Muslim unity on the foundations of regressive,
fundamentalist, feudal, backward-looking Islam, and promote pan-Islamism
at the cost of nationalism? Why promote the retrograde Islamic group-
consciousness? In fact, Jinnah, who later became a rabid communalist for
the sake of power, had advised against support to Khilafat and to the
fundamentalist elements. Jinnah felt alarmed at the emergence of the
reactionary mullah elements. He wondered why the Hindu leaders were not
realising that the movement was fostering Pan-Islamic sentiments. At that
time, Jinnah believed that it was wrong to mix religious faith with politics.
Gandhi had not realised the danger of mixing religion with politics, and it
cost India dear. Patriotism ought always to be territorial, and not communal
or religious.
Wrote MC Chagla:
“I have always felt that Gandhiji was wrong in trying to bring
about Hindu-Muslim unity by supporting the cause of the
Khilafat… So long as the religious cause survived, the unity was
there; but once that cause was removed the unity showed its
weakness. All the Khilafists who had been attracted by to the
Congress came out in their true colours…”{MCC/78}
Gandhi’s move was thoroughly opportunistic. He thought that by
lending support to and leading the Khilafat Movement he would become a
leader of Muslims too, and outmanoeuvre Muslim leaders like Jinnah. In
that sense, Gandhi’s move had a strong element of personal ambition.
Gandhi actually had an immature and simplistic understanding of Islam,
Islamic history, Indian history, and Hindu-Muslim relationships. He wasn’t
a well-read person, or a person who had deep knowledge and understanding
of the issues involved. He went more by goody-goody sentimentalism, and
was more an all-round quack than a thinker. As was bound to be, Gandhi’s
opportunistic move resulted in multiple failures.
Rather than Hindu-Muslim unity, it ultimately resulted in deterioration
of Hindu-Muslim relations; its unfortunate high watermark being the
terrible Moplah Rebellion of 1921 in the Malabar region of Kerala,
resulting in indescribable atrocities against Hindus: forcible conversion,
driving them away from homes, rape, loot, and killings.
Many Muslim leaders who were with Gandhi in the Khilafat Movement
turned anti, and joined Muslim League. In a way, the movement laid the
foundation of future Pakistan. The sidelined Jinnah became rabidly anti-
Gandhi, anti-Congress, and anti-Hindu.
No dent whatsoever was caused to the British against whom the
agitation was launched.
Pre-mature termination of the movement by Gandhi on the incident of
Chauri Chaura led not to less, but more, violence, and communal riots.
The British had not touched Gandhi, but once the movement petered
out, and they sensed that neither the Muslims nor Hindus would be
provoked by his arrest, they promptly got a six-year jail term pronounced
for him in March 1922 for writing seditious articles, and arrested him. To
rub in the point, a remark was made in the British Parliament that not a dog
had barked in India on Gandhi’s 1922 arrest. Gandhi was, however, released
after two years from Yerwada prison after an operation in Sassoon Hospital
in February 1924.
AMBEDKAR’S VIEWS
One wonders why Gandhi and Nehru didn’t listen to the wise
Ambedkar. This is what Dr BR Ambedkar had to say in
‘Pakistan or the Partition of India’{Amb3}:
“…The Mahomedans started the Khilafat movement in 1919. The
objective of the movement was two-fold; to preserve the Khilafat and to
maintain the integrity of the Turkish Empire. Both these objectives were
unsupportable. The Khilafat could not be saved simply because the Turks,
in whose interest this agitation was carried on, did not want the Sultan.
They wanted a republic and it was quite unjustifiable to compel the Turks to
keep Turkey a monarchy when they wanted to convert it into a republic…
“The movement was started by the Mahomedans. It was taken up by Mr.
Gandhi with a tenacity and faith which must have surprised many
Mahomedans themselves. There were many people who doubted the ethical
basis of the Khilafat movement and tried to dissuade Mr. Gandhi from
taking any part in a movement the ethical basis of which was so
questionable. But Mr. Gandhi had so completely persuaded himself of the
justice of the Khilafat agitation that he refused to yield to their advice…
“…The truth is that the non-co-operation has its origin in the Khilafat
agitation and not in the Congress Movement for Swaraj: that it was started
by the Khilafatists to help Turkey and adopted by the Congress only to help
the Khilafatists; that Swaraj was not its primary object, but its primary
object was Khilafat and that Swaraj was added as a secondary object to
induce the Hindus to join it… But the Hindus [Hindu leaders] were hesitant
in joining the Muslims. Mr. Gandhi was the only Hindu who joined the
Muslims…
“…Unfortunately, the hope of Mr. Gandhi that no Government can
possibly withstand the bloodless opposition of a whole nation did not come
true. Within a year of the starting of the Non-co-operation Movement, Mr.
Gandhi had to admit that the. Musalmans had grown impatient and that: ‘In
their impatient anger, the Musalmans ask for more energetic and more
prompt action by the Congress and Khilafat organisations. To the
Musalmans, Swaraj means, as it must mean, India's ability to deal
effectively with the Khilafat question. The Musalmans, therefore, decline to
wait if the attainment of Swaraj means indefinite delay of a programme that
may require the Musalmans of India to become impotent witnesses of the
extinction of Turkey in European waters… I would gladly ask for
postponement of Swaraj activity if thereby we could advance the interest of
Khilafat… But, in my humble opinion, attainment of Swaraj is the quickest
method of righting the Khilafat wrong…
“…The Musalmans were not in a mood to listen to the advice of Mr.
Gandhi. They refused to worship the principle of non-violence. They were
not prepared to wait for Swaraj. They were in a hurry to find the most
expeditious means of helping Turkey and saving the Khilafat. And the
Muslims in their impatience did exactly what the Hindus feared they would
do, namely, invite the Afghans to invade India. How far the Khilafatists had
proceeded in their negotiations with the Amir of Afghanistan it is not
possible to know. But that such a project was entertained by them is beyond
question. It needs no saying that the project of an invasion of India was the
most dangerous project and every sane Indian would dissociate himself
from so mad a project. What part Mr. Gandhi played in this project it is not
possible to discover. Certainly he did not dissociate himself from it. On the
contrary his misguided zeal for Swaraj and his obsession on Hindu-Moslem
unity as the only means of achieving it, led him to support the project. Not
only did he advise the Amir not to enter into any treaty with the British
Government but declared: ‘I would, in a sense, certainly assist the Amir of
Afghanistan if he waged war against the British Government. That is to say,
I would openly tell my countrymen that it would be a crime to help a
government which had lost the confidence of the nation to remain in
power.’…
“Can any sane man [reference to Gandhi] go so far, for the sake of
Hindu-Moslem unity? But, Mr. Gandhi was so attached to Hindu-Moslem
unity that he did not stop to enquire what he was really doing in this mad
endeavour…”
MISERABLE FAILURE OF GANDHI’S FIRST MASS AGITATION
First, let us see what were the aims of Gandhi-led first mass agitation of
Khilafat and non-cooperation: (1)Protection of Khalifa and Khilafat—
Caliph of Turkey. (2)Swaraj (Self-rule) within 12 months. (3)Hindu-Muslim
amity and unity, so that apart from other positives, anti-British forces
become stronger.
Were any of the above aims met? NO.
Khalifa was kicked out and Khilafat terminated forever, not by the
British, but by the Muslims of Turkey themselves, ushering-in a democratic
and modern system of government under Kemal Mustafa. Swaraj remained
a mirage, and was as far away as it had ever been. Hindu-Muslim
relationships, instead of improving, became worse.
Major Negative
By supporting the Khilafat Movement Gandhi ended up communalising
the freedom movement. Even Jinnah had cautioned Gandhi and the
Congress against it.
Mughals never looked up to a Khalifa or a Muslim power or spiritual
centre beyond India. By the time of the British takeover of India, the
Muslims had largely Indianised, and looked within India for their roots.
Many Muslim countries had not bothered about the Ottomans or the
Khalifa. Indeed the Muslims of Turkey themselves wanted the Ottoman
Sultan out. There was therefore no logic to Indian Muslims rooting for the
Ottomans and the Khalifa. But, Gandhi’s support gave a huge fillip to the
Indian Muslims to look for inspiration and leadership outside India—it
strengthened pan-Islamism, which went against Indian nationalism. In a
way, it was therefore not Jinnah, but Gandhi, who laid the groundwork for
two-nation theory, with such irrational support to Khilafat.
Gandhi, KNCM & Hindu-Muslim Relationship
KNCM proved to be a big failure in so far as the Hindu-Muslim
relationship was concerned. Many Muslim leaders, instead of joining the
national mainstream or coming over to the Congress, joined the Muslim
League. Moderate, educated Muslims, thanks to the Khilafat effect, became
more conservative—many started growing beard. Commented Jawaharlal
Nehru:
“Owing to the prominence given to the Khilafat Movement in
1921 a large number of Maulvis and Muslim religious leaders took a
prominent part in the political struggle. They gave a definite
religious tinge to the movement, and Muslims generally were
greatly influenced by it. Many a Westernised Muslim, who was not
of particularly religious turn of mind, began to grow a beard and
conform to the tenets of orthodoxy.”
Jamait-Ulama-e-Hind was founded to provide political leadership on the
‘universal’ values of Shariah. The emerging conservative, maulvis-driven
leadership became a challenge to (the then) secular Muslims like Jinnah.
Wrote Mahommedali Currim Chagla (1900–1981), who later became
India’s Chief Justice:
“I also think that the alliance between Mahatma Gandhi and the
Khilafists considerably accentuated the communal and religious
aspects of Indian public life… It also resulted in a great set-back
both for Jinnah and men like him, and for the Muslim League,
which were working on secular lines.”{MCC/81}
Rather than teaming up with the progressive and secular elements (like
Jinnah) among the Muslim leadership, Gandhi aligned with the backward-
looking, conservative, fundamentalist and undesirable elements for
Khilafat, giving fillip and exposure to those dangerous pan-Islamic (and
generally anti-nationalist) leaders and their followers. Where was the so-
called urgent need for forging Hindu-Muslim unity in 1919 when that had
already been achieved and forged through the Lucknow Pact of 1916,
thanks to Tilak and Jinnah. Or, was it that Gandhi wanted to establish his
own leadership by undermining Tilak-Jinnah work, unmindful of the
possibility of its terribly negative consequences. That the elements Gandhi
had gone along with were undesirable would be obvious from the
following:
Mohammad Ali, among the leading lights of the Khilafat Movement,
who had earlier been hailing and praising Gandhi, declared in 1924, after
the failure of Khilafat:
“However pure Mr. Gandhi's character may be, he must appear
to me from the point of view of religion inferior to any Mussalman
though he [Muslim] be without character.”{Amb3}
In 1925, Mohammad Ali again emphasised:
“Yes, according to my religion and creed, I do hold an
adulterous and a fallen Mussalman to be better than Mr.
Gandhi.”{VKM} {Amb3}
Mohammad Ali also commented:
“But between belief and actual character there is a wide
difference. As a follower of Islam I am bound to regard the creed of
Islam as superior to that professed by the followers of any non-
Islamic religion. And in this sense the creed of even a fallen and
degraded Mussalman is entitled to a higher place than that of any
other non-Muslim irrespective of his high character, even though the
person in question be Mahatma Gandhi himself.”{CWMG/468}
How ‘nationalistic’ or ‘patriotic’ Gandhi’s chosen colleague Mohammad
Ali was became obvious when he arranged that upon his death he be buried,
not in India, but in Jerusalem—his grave is near the Dome of the Rock
(Islamic shrine located on the Temple Mount).
Wrote Ms Annie Besant on anti-Hindu Moplah Riots of Aug-Sep 1921
(details elsewhere in this book): “It would be well if Mr. Gandhi could be
taken into Malabar to see with his own eyes the ghastly horrors which have
been created by the preaching of himself and his ‘loved brothers’
Mohammad and Shaukat Ali…”{AB}
Significantly, Gandhi never called upon Muslim leaders to condemn the
Moplah brutality. Gandhi, wedded to ‘Ahimsa’, never questioned the
undesirable elements in the Muslim leadership for their gangster methods.
Muslims supported Gandhi’s non-cooperation only because Gandhi
supported Khilafat—as a quid pro quo—not because they had any faith in
it. Gandhi himself admitted: “My talk with Hasrat Mohani left me much
disturbed. According to him nobody believes in non-cooperation. But it has
been taken up merely to conciliate me.”
During the Hindu-Muslim bonhomie of 1919-22, many Muslim leaders
had called upon the Muslims to voluntarily given up beef, and stop cow-
slaughter, as a gesture to Hindus, for their support for the Khilafat
Movement. Gandhi had, however, insisted that the Hindu co-operation
would be unconditional, saying, “Conditional assistance is like the
adulterated cement which does not bind.” Maulana Abdul Bari had stated:
“Muslim honour would be at stake if they forgot the co-operation of the
Hindus. I for my part say that we should stop cow-killing, irrespective of
the cooperation, because we are children of the same soil.”{Akb2/237}
However, after the withdrawal of the KNCM by Gandhi, the Muslims
resumed the practice of cow-slaughter even more ostentatiously. Since the
Muslim invasions of the eighth century cow-slaughter has been the Muslim
device to desecrate the Hindu holy places, and to insult the Hindus. It has
far more to do with humiliating Hindus, than it has to do with food-habits.
It has been a symbol of Muslim aggression and intolerance. Wrote BR
Nanda:
“The very Muslims who, as a gesture to their Hindu neighbours,
had voluntarily given up cow-slaughter [in the wake of
Gandhian/Hindu support to Khilafat] during the favourable climate
of 1920-22, now [after Gandhi called off the movement] insisted on
ostentatiously exercising it as a religious obligation.”{Nan/257}
The great Indian novelist, Sarat Chandra Chatterjee (Chattopadhyay),
had commented in his speech at the Bengal Provincial Conference in 1926
that the Hindu-Muslim unity, particularly of the kind fostered by Mahatma
Gandhi, was a dangerous illusion as ‘battles for a false cause can never be
won’.{Akb2/225}
There were wide-spread communal riots all over India during 1918-24,
both during and after the Khilafat between 1918 and 19, as if Hindus were
responsible for what befell the Ottomans and the Khalifa!
1921 Moplah anti-Hindu riots were the worst ever. Kohat anti-Hindu
riots of 1924 claimed lives of over 155 Hindus and Sikhs, and the entire
Hindu and Sikh population had to flee the town to save their lives. In 1926
alone there were 35 Hindu-Muslim clashes. Swami Shraddhanand was
murdered in 1926. Said Gandhi in 1927: “I dare not touch the problem of
Hindu-Muslim unity. It has passed out of human hands and has been
transferred to God’s hands alone.” Sadly, despite ample contemporary
evidence, and the surfeit of it through the centuries, Gandhi, Nehru & Co
failed to grasp the nature of Islam, and the psychology of Muslims.
Lajpat Rai, Madan Mohan Malviya and Swami Shraddhanand were of
the opinion that thanks to Khilafat there was a dangerous awakening and
turn among the Muslim masses leading to more frequent and brutal
communal incidents, and that therefore the Hindus needed to prepare
suitably for their self-defence against the increasingly aggressive Muslims.
Gandhi’s close Khilafat friends and colleagues turned foes. Muhammad
and Shaukat Ali, and their Muslim followers, began to say it was a mistake
to align with the Hindus! Maulana Shaukat Ali went to the extent of
alleging that while the Khilafat Committee had subsidised Gandhi’s non-
cooperation movement, Gandhi had turned his back on the interests of the
Muslims. Gandhi was so piqued by Shaukat Ali’s remarks that while
rebutting him and asserting the finance was given unasked, Gandhi
promised to return back the amount with interest.
Sadly, Gandhi’s suspension of non-cooperation cost India Hindu-
Muslim alliance, and created almost a permanent wedge between the two
communities, leading ultimately to partition. In a way, Gandhi’s first mass
agitation resulted, not in communal bonhomie, but in communal
disharmony, and laid the foundation of Partition and Pakistan.
PRINCE OF WALES’S VISIT & LOST OPPORTUNITY
The Prince of Wales (later King Edward VIII) was scheduled to visit
India in November 1921. The on-going ‘Khilafat & Non-Cooperation
Movement (KNCM)’, coupled with the threat of the Congress in July 1921
at the instance of Gandhi to boycott the visit made the British officials and
the Viceroy panicky, as they wanted the visit celebrated on a grand scale all
through India. To placate Gandhi, and ensure there was no boycott, the
Viceroy suggested a Round Table Conference (RTC) to sort out and settle
various issues. The Viceroy discussed the issue with Pandit Madan Mohan
Malviya, who, in turn, tried to convince Gandhi and other Congress leaders
to not let go the golden opportunity.{Nan/227} The Viceroy agreed to release all
the arrested leaders to facilitate the RTC. However, Gandhi obstinately
insisted that first all the arrested leaders, particularly the Ali Brothers,
should be released unconditionally. This led to an impasse. Gandhi’s
quibbling was non-leaderlike and small-minded, and nothing was gained
from it. The golden opportunity to take forward self-government and swaraj
was lost. Indeed, later, after the Prince of Wales had left, Gandhi requested
for a RTC. But, by then, Viceroy had no compulsion, and he flatly refused.
If Gandhi had heeded Malviya and others the progress in self-government
and swaraj could have been initiated in 1921 itself. It is worth noting that
many senior leaders, including Maulana Azad, Deshbandhu CR Das, were
in full agreement with Malviya, and wanted Gandhi to take up the Viceroy’s
offer.{Azad/19-21}
SECOND PHASE OF GANDHIAN STRUGGLE: 1930-1931
DANDI MARCH & SALT SATYAGRAHA 1930
The government had levied tax on the manufacture and sale of salt, an
item used by all—rich and poor. To Gandhi breaking the Salt Law appeared
to be a fit case for peaceful civil disobedience, to gain publicity, and to
mobilise masses: everyone could participate in it—scoop salt at the coast,
or just sell and buy salt without paying tax.
To gain maximum Indian and international publicity, Gandhi planned a
long 390 km march from his Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad to the
coastal Gujarat village of Dandi near Navsari, where his group planned to
produce salt at the coast without paying tax. 78 people began the march
with Gandhi on 12 March 1930, and arrived at Dandi after a 24-day walk on
5 April 1930, breaking the Salt Law at 6.30am the next day on 6 April
1930. Many people had joined the group along the way. The march turned
into a grand media event.
Gandhi had appointed Sardar Patel as the Grand Commander for the
march. Dandi and the Salt Route were Patel’s choice. Sardar did a fine job,
delivering fiery speeches along the route, and mobilising and inspiring
people. Remarked Pattabhi Sitaramayya: “While yet Gandhi was making
preparations, Vallabhbhai went before his master to prime up the villagers
for the coming ordeals…”{BK2/45} That resulted in his arrest before he could
reach the destination. Gandhi commented that Patel was arrested because
the government “feared that if he were free, he and not the government
would rule over the district.”{BK2/45}
In Sabarmati jail, Patel was lodged in a cell meant for those awarded
capital punishment, denied any amenities, and provided horrible food. His
cell used to be locked up for the night at 5.30 pm. Despite the treatment
Patel told his visitors in the presence of jail officials: “Don't worry about
me. I am happy as a bird. There is only one thing which bothers me.” After
a pause, he added in the presence of his Indian jailers: “What worries me is
that all the people in charge of the jail here are Indians! It is through us
Indians that they work this inhuman system.”{BK/144}
British began spreading all kind of propaganda to discredit the
satyagraha, and claim, among other wild nonsense, that they have been the
protectors, and that but for them Hindus would be unsafe from Muslims and
Pathans, with Afghans re-invading the country. In one of his speeches Patel
commented: “Haven’t they reduced us to such a helpless state after 150
years of their rule? If thirty-three crores of us cannot protect ourselves, then
what is left for us to do is to commit suicide! But to tolerate such talk is a
great insult.”{BK/141}
Patel was temporarily released in the wake of the tension created by his
arrest. But, he was re-arrested, along with his daughter, Maniben.
Vallabhbhai remained in Sabarmati Jail from 7 March 1930 to 26 June
1930. The freedom was short-lived, as he was re-arrested for leading a
procession in Bombay on 31 July 1930. Released in November, he was
again arrested in December 1930, and sent to Yerwada prison for 9 months.
Gandhi marched triumphantly ahead with host of processionists, making
speeches along the way. The villages they passed through were festooned as
if participating in a festival. Many villagers joined the march along the way.
The procession gradually grew from under a hundred to a few thousand by
the time they hit the destination.
After making salt at Dandi, Gandhi continued further along the coast,
producing salt and addressing meetings. Rajaji had remarked perceptively:
“It is not salt but disobedience that you are manufacturing.”{RG3/117}
It is significant that the Raj didn’t interfere with Gandhi’s march
(although they arrested others), nor with the wide publicity it received, what
with the newsreel cameras of the world clicking away. The British did
indulge Gandhi; and the generosity of the media towards him both within
and outside India would not have been possible without the Raj’s tacit
approval.
But, before the planned satyagraha at the Dharasana Salt Works, 40 km
south of Dandi, Gandhi was arrested on the midnight of 4–5 May 1930.
However, Manilal, Gandhi’s second son, and Sarojini Naidu led 2500
satyagrahis to Dharasana Salt Works on 21 May 1930. As they approached
the Works, they were mercilessly hit by lathis and boots on heads and body,
at the instructions of 6 British officers, by about 400 Indian constables
posted there. No blows were returned. About 320 were injured.
But, did it make any sense—political or otherwise? What did the non-
violent satyagrahis (or the nation) gain by being violently and mercilessly
beaten up? To line up unarmed and get clubbed would embarrass or shame
the Raj into packing up and leaving?! There were several reasons the
British ultimately left, but having been shamed and embarrassed into
leaving was certainly not one of the reasons.
The Satyagraha continued for about a year at various places in India.
Gandhi was released from jail unconditionally on 26 January 1931. He later
met with Lord Irwin (1881-1959), the Viceroy of India, and agreed to call
off the Satyagraha in exchange for an equal negotiating role at the Second
Round Table Conference at London on India’s future. However, the
negotiations failed to yield any major concession from the British!
GANDHI-IRWIN PACT 1931: A FAILURE
26 January 1931: Gandhi released from Yerwada jail. Other CWC
members also released from jail.
17 February 1931: Gandhi-Irwin talks began.
February 1931: Chandrashekhar Azad met Nehru secretly at Nehru’s
residence ‘Anand Bhavan’ at Allahabad in February 1931 to know if
Gandhi and the Congress would do something in the ongoing Gandhi-Irwin
talks to save Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev from gallows.
5 March 1931: Gandhi-Irwin Pact was signed off. There was NO
provision in it for clemency to Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev.
Gandhi, Nehru and the Congress did NOTHING to save them.
26–31 March 1931: Gandhi-Irwin Pact endorsed in the Karachi Session
of the Congress.
Under the Gandhi-Irwin Pact, the British acceded to NO major demand
of the Congress. It was effectively a failure of Gandhi’s Salt Satyagraha: his
second major movement. Salt Laws remained intact.
Although it brought in lots of publicity for Gandhi, and gave a
psychological boost to the freedom movement, the net real results of the
Salt Satyagraha were zilch. And, the psychological gains that accrued
extracted too high a price, not from the leaders like Gandhi, but from the
general public.
Before the start of the Salt Satyagraha on 12 March 1930, Gandhi had
put forth the following Eleven Point Demand on the Viceroy (stated below
in brief), and made it clear that if the 11 points were ignored, the only way
out was civil disobedience:
(1) Prohibit intoxicants.
(2) Change the ratio between the rupee and the sterling.
(3) Reduce the rate of land revenue.
(4) Abolition of salt tax.
(5) Reduce the military expenditure.
(6) Reduce expenditure on civil administration.
(7) Impose custom duty on foreign cloth.
(8) Accept the Postal Reservation Bill.
(9) Abolish CID.
(10) Release all political prisoners.
(11) Issue licenses of arms to citizens for self-protection.
No Demand for Complete Independence! Conspicuous absence in the
above Eleven Point Demand is that for Complete Independence, especially
when the Congress had grandly promulgated the Purna Swaraj Declaration,
or the Declaration of the Independence of India, only a few weeks back on
26 January 1930! It is worth noting that the Gandhian freedom fighters had
NOT demanded complete freedom from the British in any of their
movements till 1942. In fact, the Purna Swaraj Declaration was passed by
Gandhi under grave pressure from revolutionaries and from some leaders in
the Congress; when Gandhi himself was comfortable only with his flexible
definition of Swaraj or Dominion Status.
None of the above 11 points were accepted by the Viceroy. While all the
above 11 points put forth before the start of the agitation on 12 March 1930
were ignored by the Raj, Gandhi, in consultation with his colleagues, put
forth the following six revised points to the Viceroy on 17 February 1931 as
his condition for calling off the agitation:
1) Release all political prisoners giving them clemency.
2) As a policy, peaceful volunteers for freedom movement NOT to be
prosecuted.
3) Return properties confiscated from political volunteers.
4) Re-appoint all the government servants dismissed for their political
participation.
5) Grant freedom to picket the government offices, and the shops
dealing in foreign goods. Grant freedom to make salt from the seawater.
6) Order an enquiry into the unlawful activities the police perpetrated on
the people.
As would be seen from the above, while almost all of the original
Eleven Point Demand for which the agitation was started disappeared, 5 of
the above 6 demands are a consequence of the agitation (clemency to the
agitators). The only demand that remained was the almost inconsequential
and harmless demand number-5: “Grant freedom to picket the government
offices, and the shops dealing in foreign goods. Grant freedom to make salt
from the seawater.”
Even the above watered-down demands were NOT fully agreed to by
the Viceroy.
What then was agreed through the Gandhi–Irwin Pact? Just these two:
(1)Permit peaceful picketing of liquor and foreign cloth shops. (2)Permit
free collection or manufacture of salt by persons near the sea-coast. Mind
you, NO withdrawal of salt tax. Salt laws remained intact. Just that those
living near the sea could make salt—which they had anyway been doing, it
being near impossible to keep a watch on thousands of miles of coast.
Therefore, the Salt Satyagraha for ending the Salt Tax was a total failure!
The other points of agreement in the Gandhi–Irwin Pact were only those
that related to the consequence of the agitation: (1)Withdrawal of
ordinances in the wake of the agitation, and ending prosecutions. (2)Release
of political prisoners, excluding those guilty of violence. (3)Restoration of
properties confiscated from the satyagrahis. (4)Lifting of the ban over the
Congress. What about those who lost jobs?
Significantly, release of arrested soldiers of the Garhwali Rifles (please
read “Qissa Khwani Bazaar Massacre 1930, Garhwal Rifles & Gandhi’s
Shameful Stand” elsewhere in this book) was excluded from the Pact. The
Pact also provided for no relief for Shahid Bhagat Singh and group, who
were hanged. Netaji Bose was critical of the Gandhi-Irwin pact on several
grounds, including the main issue of Swaraj which was conspicuous by its
absence.
The Gandhi–Irwin Pact of 5 March 1931 signed by Gandhi and the then
Viceroy of India, Lord Irwin, brought a formal end to the Salt Satyagraha,
and paved the way for the Congress participation in the Second Round
Table Conference in London.
What Gandhi agreed to in the Gandhi–Irwin Pact was well short of the
minimum he had demanded for truce. Gandhi used to apprise the CWC
daily in the night on his talks that lasted from February 17 to March 4, and
used to seek their suggestions and approvals. Members of the CWC were
not happy on many counts, but they were not for breaking the talks. The
cost of the agitation was huge, and results a big zero: People suffered heavy
repression—over 60,000 were jailed, and hundreds were shot dead.
Vallabhbhai Patel was heartbroken at Gandhi’s failure to obtain the
restoration of sold lands of the peasants by the British. The Patidars of
Kheda considered the Pact a betrayal—it was the Pact, and not the Police
lathis, that broke their backs! However, Patel pacified them by telling:
“Don’t worry about your land. It will come back to you knocking at your
door.” And, sure enough, after the 1937-elections when the Congress came
into power in the Bombay Presidency (that included Gujarat), the land was
restored.{BK2/53}
Several newspapers in London gloated on the victory of the Viceroy.
Wrote ‘The Times’, London: “Such a victory has seldom been vouchsafed
to any Viceroy.” It was said that only Gandhi could have made such an
agreement (being such a huge come-down), and only he could have got
away with it!{Gill/59}
As has been pointed out earlier too, Gandhi had a habit of making easy
compromises with the British without achieving the stated goals of his
agitations— at the expense of the agitating public, who suffered grievously.
Public felt disappointed at the stoppage of the movement by Gandhi when
the people were in high spirit—it was a case of déjà vu: similar to the
stoppage of the Khilafat Movement by Gandhi in 1922.
Lord Willingdon, who succeeded Lord Irwin as the Viceroy of India in
1931, was very rigid, and ignored many provisions of the Gandhi-Irwin
Pact. To give just one example, the Government of Madras banned
picketing at liquor-shops or at auctions of liquor-stall licences, as it hurt its
revenues—a clear breach of the Pact.
CONDEMNING BHAGAT SINGH & COLLEAGUES TO DEATH
The death of Lala Lajpat Rai in the brutal police lathi-charge was
avenged by Shahid Bhagat Singh, Raj Guru, Jai Gopal and Sukhdev by
killing Assistant Superintendent of Police JP Saunders in Lahore on 17
December 1928. On 8 April 1929, Bhagat Singh and Batukeshwar Dutt
threw a bomb at the government benches in the Central Legislative
Assembly in Delhi, and raised slogans. There were no casualties—none
were intended. Both surrendered. Many members of their group were also
arrested. On 23 March 1931, Shahid Bhagat Singh, Raj Guru and Sukhdev
were executed by the British.
It is worth noting that despite requests to make saving of Shahid Bhagat
Singh and others a condition in the on-going negotiations between Gandhi
and Viceroy Irwin, the Gandhi–Irwin Pact signed on 5 March 1931, and
approved by the Congress at its Karachi session on 30 March 1931,
remained silent on the matter, and Gandhi and the Congress did effectively
precious little to save the braves. There were no demonstrations, no hartals,
no satyagraha and no fasts organised by the Congress Party or Gandhi; nor
did Gandhi include the matter of commutation of sentences of Bhagat Singh
and others while negotiating release of the Congress prisoners of the Salt
Satyagraha with Viceroy Irwin for the Gandhi-Irwin Pact.
Sukhdev, who had not pleaded for himself and his colleagues, wrote an
open letter to Gandhi after the Gandhi-Irwin Pact: “…Since your
compromise (Gandhi-Irwin pact) you have called off your movement and
consequently all of your prisoners have been released. But, what about the
revolutionary prisoners? Dozens of Ghadar Party prisoners imprisoned
since 1915 are still rotting in jails; in spite of having undergone the full
terms of their imprisonments, scores of martial law prisoners are still buried
in these living tombs, and so are dozens of Babbar Akali prisoners.
Deogarh, Kakori, Machhua Bazar and Lahore Conspiracy Case prisoners
are amongst those numerous still locked behind bars. More than half a
dozen conspiracy trials are going on at Lahore, Delhi, Chittagong, Bombay,
Calcutta and elsewhere. Dozens of revolutionaries are absconding and
amongst them are many females. More than half a dozen prisoners are
actually waiting for their executions. What about all of these people? The
three Lahore Conspiracy Case condemned prisoner (Bhagat Singh,
Sukhdev, Rajguru), who have luckily come into prominence and who have
acquired enormous public sympathy, do not form the bulk of the
revolutionary party. Their fate is not the only consideration before the party.
As a matter of fact their executions are expected to do greater good than the
commutation of their sentences…”
The letter had no effect on Gandhi.
The British India Viceroy Lord Irwin recorded in his notes dated 19
March 1931: “While returning Gandhiji asked me if he could talk about the
case of Bhagat Singh, because newspapers had come out with the news of
his slated hanging on March 24th. It would be a very unfortunate day
because on that day the new president of the Congress had to reach Karachi
and there would be a lot of hot discussion. I explained to him that I had
given a very careful thought to it but I did not find any basis to convince
myself to commute the sentence. It appeared he found my reasoning
weighty.”
From this it appears Gandhi was bothered more about the
embarrassment that would be faced by the Congress with Bhagat Singh’s
hanging than by the hanging itself.
The British “justice” system could allow the British mass-murderer of
Jallianwala Bagh to get away scot free, and the British could even
generously reward him for that brutality; but people like Bhagat Singh who
protested against those brutal acts deserved to be hanged; and Gandhi’s
abstruse artefact (was it deliberately abstruse to allow for self-serving
flexibility!) of “non-violence” was comfortable with such a position!
The executions took place on the eve of the annual convention of the
Congress party at Karachi; and Gandhi faced black flag demonstrations by
angry youths who shouted “Down with Gandhi!”
Thanks to his daring and commitment to free India, by the time Bhagat
Singh was hanged in 1931, he had become highly popular all over India,
and had risen in political stature to a level higher than all other leaders in
India. Bhagat Singh Day was observed throughout Punjab on 17 February
1931. In states as far away as Assam and Andhra Pradesh, innumerable folk
songs grew about him; and rural craft works celebrating his bravery became
popular.
IRRESPONSIBLE PART OF THE GANDHIAN NON-COOPERATION CALL
As a part of the satyagraha and non-cooperation Gandhi gave a call for
boycott of British courts, withdrawal from elections, surrender of titles and
honorary offices, a movement against untouchability, usage of Khadi,
burning of foreign cloth, and picketing of opium dens and liquor shops.
These were fine. Although, students had pointed out to Gandhi even as
early as 1920 that Khadi was relatively too costly for them to afford.
But, Gandhi also gave a call asking the students to leave government
schools and colleges, and for the government employees to resign. This he
had done during the Khilafat Movement of early-1920s too, and repeated it
subsequently for the Quit India Movement. Why? What was the logic?
What great purpose was served? Was it not irresponsible? He unnecessarily
played with the careers of young students, and ruined the lives of the
employees, and their families. Congress leaders had their means, but what
about the poor, and the middle-class? Did Gandhi arrange for an
alternative? None! And, it was not as if Gandhi was getting the country
independence (till the Quit India 1942 Gandhi had not even put up the
demand of complete independence as one of the conditions in his
movements), and had plans in place to take care of those who sacrifice. Yes,
the netas had a good time after independence, but the status of the poor and
the middle-class didn’t change for the better.
The poor and the middle-class who participated in the freedom
movement received bullets or lathis outside, and lashes inside jails, and
dust-pebble mixed terrible food; while hardly a top Gandhian leader ever
received a lathi outside; and inside jails, they were treated like VIPs,
writing books, playing bridge, experimenting with nutrition, and alternate
medicine!
Nearly 60,000 were jailed in the agitation, hundreds were shot dead, and
people suffered untold repression and hardships—all to little avail.
Gurudev Tagore had rightly opposed Gandhi’s call to students to leave
schools and colleges.
CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE MOVEMENT (CDM), PHASE-II
Lord Willingdon, who had succeeded Lord Irwin as the Viceroy of India
in 1931 was determined to teach Congress a lesson, and wipe it out. He
even proclaimed that Gandhi was a “humbug” to whom he intended giving
no quarters. He ignored many of the provisions of the Gandhi-Irwin Pact,
and went against its spirit. Raj officials started acting tough and brutal on
revenue recovery all over India. Any resistance was mercilessly suppressed.
The Viceroy issued an array of ordinances giving the authorities unlimited
powers. It was as if a “Civil Martial Law” had been promulgated. There
were no civil liberties. The authorities could detain people and seize their
property at will.
Gandhi returned after attending the Second RTC at London on 28
December 1931; and on that day, the CWC decided to resume the Civil
Disobedience Movement (CDM), which we now refer to as CDM Phase-II,
Phase-I being the Salt Satyagraha.
Within a week, Gandhi and Patel were arrested on 4 January 1932. Soon
after all the CWC members were put behind bars. Many Congress
organisations were banned, their funds confiscated, and offices seized.
Leading Congress-persons were rounded up. Processions were lathi-charged
or fired-upon. Freedom fighters found to indulge in even minor violence
were severely thrashed, jailed, and flogged. Press censorship was imposed.
Ordinances ruled the day.
The net result of the Salt Satyagraha, the Gandhi-Irwin Pact, and
Gandhi’s sole participation in the Second RTC was a big zero!
Arrested under a regulation that permitted detention without trial, with
no fixed sentence, Gandhi and Patel were lodged at Yerwada jail in Poona.
Gandhi was released after about 16 months in the summer of 1933, while
Patel was released after over 30 months in July 1934.
The movement failed to build a tempo, and was crushed within a few
months. Officially, the CDM was suspended in May 1933, but was finally
withdrawn in May 1934.
Third & Last Phase of Gandhian Struggle: 1942
QUIT INDIA MOVEMENT 1942
CALL FOR “QUIT INDIA” & ITS BACKGROUND
Gandhi felt dismayed by the blatant racist discrimination against the
Indians returning from Burma: whites and blacks had separate routes—
there was a ‘white’ road, and a ‘black’ road to Assam. The Europeans were
well-provided with food and shelter along the ‘white’ road, while the
Indians travelling on the ‘black’ road were left to starve! Realising that
British were in India to take care of their own interests, and not that of
Indians, he felt they had better quit. Gandhi felt appalled by the British
attitude.
It seems queer that Gandhi should have realised the above, and the
perfidy and the ill-intentions of the British as late as 1942, considering his
personal experience of barbarous rabid racism in South Africa between
1893 and 1914, Jallianwala Bagh, treatment of Indians in railways which he
himself wrote about in his booklet “Third Class in Indian Railways”, and
numerous other cases he must have come across since his return to India in
1915. Did Gandhi harbour a belief that the British were up to some good in
India? That India should have had a topmost leader with such confused
perceptions was indeed unfortunate.
The Congress realised that no action on their part may brand them as
docile and shy of fighting the British, rendering them irrelevant. Their
passivity was likely to displace them, and allow Subhas Bose, already
popular, to capture the Indian mind with his militant appeal. Such
considerations of self-survival, coupled with “need to do something for
which they were supposed to exist: freedom for the country” (the last mass
agitation was well over a decade ago: the Salt Satyagraha) led to the
conceptualisation of the idea of “Quit India”.
Gandhi’s proposal was to give a call to the British to quit India, failing
which the Congress would launch a struggle to enforce it.
Nehru and Rajaji tried hard and long to resist Gandhi’s proposal. They
were of the opinion the Indians must help the Allied Powers against the
Axis Powers, and should not therefore weaken the position of the British.
Nehru had changed his tune after Communist Russia had joined the forces
with the Allies.
Patel supported Gandhi most vehemently.
Maulana Azad was then the President of the Congress, who was also
supporting Nehru. Sardar Patel and Rajendra Prasad and several others
expressed their willingness to resign from the CWC in view of the
differences over “Quit India” program, and wrote to Azad accordingly in
May 1942. The Congress Socialists, who used to be otherwise in support of
Nehru and critical of Sardar, showed enthusiasm for “Quit India”, and
criticized Nehru for his opposition.
In the CWC Meeting at Wardha in July 1942, Gandhi wanted to move
quickly ahead with “Quit India”, and advised Azad and Nehru that they
could resign if they continued to differ; and that he [Gandhi] didn’t even
need the Congress to go ahead with his plan, as, in his opinion, “the sands
of India would throw up a movement larger than Congress if it did not
act.”{RG4/240} After Gandhi’s letter{CWMG/Vol-83/97-98} of 13 July 1942 to this
effect to Nehru, that included an advice to Maulana Azad to resign from the
presidentship of the Congress, both Nehru and Azad fell in line.
Finally, all except Rajaji came around and accepted Gandhi’s proposal
with certain modifications in its wordings: rather than straight away asking
the British “to withdraw from India’’, the changed wordings stated that the
Congress would find “it impossible to consider any schemes which retain,
even in a partial measure, British control over India’’.
Declared Rajaji: “There is no reality in the fond expectation that Britain
will leave the country in simple response to a Congress slogan [Quit India!]
… [Britain] cannot add to her crimes the crowning offence of leaving the
country in chaos to become a certain prey to foreign ambition.”{RG3/237}
The Quit India resolution stated among other things, that if the British
did not accept its appeal, the Congress would “be reluctantly compelled to
utilize all its non-violent strength”. Gandhi also hinted that unlike before,
“Quit India” would not necessarily be halted if non-Congressmen
committed acts of violence. “Quit India” was endorsed by the CWC on 14
July 1942.
Soon after, Patel put his heart, soul and body into preparation for the big
event. In various public and private meetings he exhorted people for an all-
out struggle: non-payment of taxes, civil disobedience, abstention from
work, strike by the government employees in various departments like
railways, P&T, schools, colleges, and so on, with a view to bring the entire
government machinery to a standstill. He also told that the struggle would
not be halted even if violence erupts. He wanted people to carry forward the
struggle if the leaders are arrested. Patel expected the struggle to be short
and swift.
Gandhi, in a press conference on 15 July 1942, had declared he would
launch a non-violent rebellion against the British Raj. The CWC prepared a
draft Quit India resolution on 7 August 1942 which was presented to and
passed by the AICC at the end of its two-day meeting (7–8 Aug) at Gowalia
Tank in Mumbai on 8 August 1942.
Gandhi sent Miss Madeleine Slade (Miraben) to the Viceroy to
personally explain the resolution. Gandhi did not expect any immediate
action from either side, or any confrontation. He wanted to use the
resolution as a bargaining counter, and expected talks and negotiations.
However, being war-time, and having noted the threat of Gandhi’s
rebellion, the Viceroy was in no mood to play soft and patient. He refused
an interview to Slade, and let it be known that the government would
neither stand any rebellion, violent or non-violent, nor would it discuss with
anyone who talks in such terms.{Azad/84}
POOR PREPARATION, ARRESTS & FLOP-SHOW
Unlike the meticulous preparation done by Sardar Patel both for the
Bardoli Satyagraha of 1928 and for the Salt Satyagraha of 1930; Gandhi
and the Congress had hardly done the required preparation to execute their
planned mass movement of “Quit India” on a massive scale, despite that
being their only preoccupation. However, the Raj—despite its many
responsibilities of governance and preparations for the war—had geared
itself fully to crush the impending “Quit India”. The Raj had made elaborate
plans for arrests. It promptly acted to nip “Quit India” in the bud by
promptly arresting all the Congress leaders. The Congress organisation was
outlawed. Gandhi and the AICC hadn’t anticipated such a strong and
prompt reaction from the Raj. Why? Did they expect the Raj to be as laid
back as they were? The Raj was better organized for crushing the revolt
than Congress was for executing it—despite crushing the revolt being only
one of the many responsibilities (governance, preparations for war, etc.)
being shouldered by the Raj, while organising the revolt was the only
responsibility of the Congress. It exposed the huge gulf in relative
competence.
After the passing of the ‘Quit India’ resolution, Gandhi, in his address to
the delegates after midnight, had said, inter alia: “…The actual struggle
does not commence this very moment… My first act will be to wait upon
His Excellency the Viceroy and plead with him for the acceptance of the
Congress demand. This may take two or three weeks… What are you going
to do in the meanwhile? There is the spinning-wheel…”{CWMG/Vol-83/319}
Churchill’s War Cabinet’s best offer in the form of Cripp’s Proposals
having been rebuffed, the Raj had was fully prepared to crush the Congress.
They had learnt a lesson from the Salt March—not to give a long rope to
Gandhi. This time they decided to swoop down, arrest all leaders, and nip
the agitation in the bud.
Gandhi, Sardar Patel, Kriplani, Maulana Azad, Nehru, and the rest of
the CWC, along with Mahadev Desai, Sarojini Naidu, Mirabehn, Asoka
Mehta and others were arrested on the morning of 9 August 1942. Gandhi,
Mahadev Desai, and several more were taken to the Aga Khan Palace,
Pune; some were taken to Yerwada Jail, Pune; and Sardar Patel, Nehru,
Maulana Azad, Acharya Kriplani, Shankar Rao Deo, Dr Prafulla Chandra
Ghosh, Asaf Ali, and Dr Syed Mahmud were taken to Ahmednagar Fort (in
Maharashtra) that served as a jail then. Dr Rajendra Prasad was not with
them as, being ill, he had not attended the AICC at Bombay—he was
arrested and jailed in Bihar. Although a warship was kept ready at Bombay
harbour to deport them all outside India, the Raj finally chose to confine
them in India. Rajaji was not arrested as he had resigned from the Congress
in July 1942, and had kept aloof from Quit India. Sardar Patel’s son and
daughter, Dahyabhai and Maniben, were also jailed.
Thus, hardly had the “Quit India” started when all the top leaders were
in jail. Gandhi was much dejected by the arrests. He expected negotiations,
not arrests. Wrote Maulana Azad in his autobiography:
“…We walked down the [train] corridor to his [Gandhi’s]
compartment [while being taken to jails on 9 August 1942 morning,
after arrest] which was some distance away. Gandhiji was looking
very depressed. I had never seen him looking so dejected. I
understood that he had not expected this sudden arrest. His reading
of the situation had been that the Government would take no drastic
action. I had of course warned him again and again that he was
taking too optimistic a view but obviously he had placed great faith
in his own judgement. Now that the calculations had proved wrong,
he was uncertain as to what he should do…”{Azad/88-9}
Gandhi had indeed told his secretary before going to bed in the early
hours of 9 August 1942 that, “After my last night’s speech, they [the British]
will not arrest me.”{Nan/463}
Why shouldn’t Gandhi and others have planned for such an eventuality,
and for the leadership to go underground, and carry forward the movement?
Or, was it that they didn’t mind being in the safety of jails, rather than
risking the hustle-bustle and trouble of the movement outside? With no
proper guidance or leadership, the Movement turned into anarchy.
Gandhi had grandly stated: “I want freedom immediately, this very night,
before dawn if it could be had.”{Gill/39}
Only if wishes were horses! He would wish, and the wish would be
fulfilled by the British! No preparation, no fight required.
QUIT INDIA MOMENTUM
Although the Congress leaders who had given a call for ‘Quit India’
were in jail before the movement barely started, the general public showed
enthusiasm protesting in streets, educational institutions and villages. Here
and there trains were derailed, telephone and telegraph wires cut, and police
stations and post offices were attacked. About a thousand were killed in
firing in the next few months; and about a lakh were jailed.
Quit India was brutally put down by the British, and it petered out soon
enough, except for a few random token protests. It unfortunately didn’t take
the scale Gandhi, Patel and other leaders had hoped for. But, that was
logically expected. If you have not put in the required strategy, planning
and efforts, how can you expect results from disorganised public, with no
definite directions? In fact, ‘Quit India’ soon degenerated into an ill-
organised upheaval: anti-social elements and communists began harming
the Indian interests themselves. The back of the struggle was broken by the
Raj in less than two months: by end of September 1942 it had been largely
controlled.
Wrote Durga Das: “The Quit India movement then degenerated into an
ill-organised mass upheaval, lit up as much by acts of surprising individual
ingenuity and heroism as by crude outbursts of incendiarism and looting.
Anti-social elements and the Communists indulged in violence and
destruction… But the back of the struggle had been broken by the end of
September [1942].”{DD/206}
The question arises how vandalising railway stations, post offices,
telegraph offices, shops, and bazaars, and removing railway tracks and
cutting telephone wires, and so on advanced the cause of freedom? They
only caused temporary disruptions and loss of public property. In the short
run, the participant public paid by getting lathi-charged, or lashed in jails,
and losing jobs. In the long run, the losses were recouped from the public
itself through taxes. Only if the Gandhian movement had sought to create
disaffection among the Indians in the police, bureaucracy, and the armed
forces, kindled patriotism among them, and ensured that rather than being
tools of the British to suppress Indians, they gradually became a bulwark
against colonialism (like many revolutionaries had tried) that some
worthwhile purpose could have been served. But, Gandhi wanted them—
the police and the armed forces—to remain loyal to their masters!
Sadly, ‘Quit India’ did not encompass all of India. It was mostly
confined to Bengal, Bihar, Delhi, Rajputana, and United Provinces. There
was little action in South India, and elsewhere.
VARIED VIEWS ON “QUIT INDIA”
“Quit India” Misgivings among Congress Leaders
During their time in jail in Ahmednagar, Nehru, Maulana Azad, and
Asaf Ali began to feel they had erred in following Gandhi for “Quit India”.
Azad used to even get angry at times when someone brought up the topic of
Gandhian doctrine. Azad felt that his “reading of the situation was correct”,
and that “events showed that Gandhi was wrong”{Azad/90,92}. Nehru tended to
agree with him.
Co-prisoner Mahtab recalled: “Maulana [Azad] used to criticise Gandhi
[and say], ‘His judgement was wrong and he forced his movement on all of
us, but what was expected of him he did not do. We had thought that he
would stake his life and go on an indefinite fast, but he hasn’t done
it.’”{RG/327}
Strangely, Nehru would justify “Quit India” in later years, after
independence, as inevitable and necessary. Nehru, by nature, was never sure
of himself, and changed his stand as suited the situation. Nehru said in
1956: “I don’t think that the action we took in 1942 could have been
avoided or ought to have been avoided. If we had been passive then, I think
we would have lost all our strength.”
Sardar’s Position
Vallabhbhai Patel, on the other hand, had no regrets on Quit India. By
nature, Patel, being a man of action, was generally very clear on “what, why
and how” of things. Nobody could force him to do what he was not
convinced about. In short, Patel was a person who knew his mind, while
Nehru was a person who did not. Patel was always willing to take
responsibility for his actions, was not given to regretting his actions, or
blaming others. Patel felt the steps taken by Gandhi were necessary, and not
doing what he did might have meant gradual irrelevance of the Congress.
Yet, the inadequate preparation for the struggle by Gandhi rankled Patel.
Also, he realised that Gandhian methods were too idealistic, and took
excruciatingly long; and rather than surrendering to Gandhi’s instincts and
methods, it might be wiser to be prudent and practical, and to independently
evaluate the options, and, if necessary in the interest of the nation, even go
against the Gandhian way.
Exploring Ways to Quit “Quit India”
Those like Nehru and Azad who were unhappy with “Quit India” began
to explore ways to quit “Quit India”. Plausible excuses had to be cooked. In
November 1943, Maulana Azad, with Nehru’s concurrence, suggested a
letter from the CWC to the Viceroy intimating suspension of the Movement
in view of the Bengal Famine, and growing threats from Japan. PC Ghosh’s
response to Azad-Nehru’s proposal was: “I would rather take potassium
cyanide and advise all of you to do the same rather than agree to any such
humiliating course of action.”{RG/329-30}
Ambedkar on ‘Quit India’
Wrote Ambedkar{Amb3}: “…He [Gandhi] got the Congress to pass the
famous Quit India Resolution on the 8th August 1942. This Quit India
Resolution was primarily a challenge to the British Government. But it was
also an attempt to do away with the intervention of the British Government
in the discussion of the Minority question and thereby securing for the
Congress a free hand to settle it on its own terms and according to its own
lights. It was in effect, if not in intention, an attempt to win independence
by bypassing the Muslims and the other minorities. The Quit India
Campaign turned out to be a complete failure.
“It was a mad venture and took the most diabolical form. It was a
scorch-earth campaign in which the victims of looting, arson and murder
were Indians and the perpetrators were Congressmen.
“Beaten, he [Gandhi] started a fast for twenty-one days in March 1943
while he was in gaol with the object of getting out of it. He failed.
Thereafter he fell ill. As he was reported to be sinking the British
Government released him for fear that he might die on their hand and bring
them ignominy.
“On coming out of gaol, he found that he and the Congress had not only
missed the bus but had also lost the road. To retrieve the position and win
for the Congress the respect of the British Government as a premier party in
the country which it had lost by reason of the failure of the campaign that
followed up the Quit India Resolution, and the violence which accompanied
it, he started negotiating with the Viceroy.
“Thwarted in that attempt, Mr. Gandhi turned to Mr. Jinnah. On the 17th
July 1944 Mr. Gandhi wrote to Mr. Jinnah expressing his desire to meet him
and discuss with him the communal question. Mr. Jinnah agreed to receive
Mr. Gandhi in his house in Bombay. They met on the 9th September
1944…”
RELEASE FROM JAILS
Gandhi’s Fast, Feb 1943
British propaganda had been insinuating that Gandhi was pro-Japan; and
that he had indirectly provoked, if not actually plotted, the violence that had
occurred during ‘Quit India’. Taking offence, Gandhi demanded proof from
the authorities. When there was no response, he went on a fast on 10
February 1943. The Raj did not bother. It was indeed hoping Gandhi would
succumb to his fast. Reportedly, it was even ready for his cremation on the
grounds of the Aga Khan Palace. The fast ended on 3 March 1943.
Kasturba’s Death and Gandhi’s Release in May 1944
Kasturba Gandhi (1969–1944), left to fend for herself after the arrest of
Gandhi on 9 August 1942, defied a ban on meeting along with her close
associate Maniben, Sardar Patel’s daughter, and both got arrested. Both
were sent to Aga Khan Palace where Gandhi was lodged. Kasturba had
been ill for many months. She expired on 22 February 1944 on the
Mahashivaratri day, aged 74.
The Raj, not wanting to take any chances, released Gandhi, who had
been seriously ill, on 6 May 1944, about 10 weeks after Kasturba’s death.
Nehru-Patel’s Release, June 1945
The Second World War ended on 8 May 1945 (about a week after Adolf
Hitler had committed suicide) with the unconditional surrender of the Axis
powers. Patel and others were released from Ahmednagar prison on 15 June
1945, about a month after the end of the Second World War, and over a year
after the release of Gandhi (6 May 1944).
After release, Patel remained adamant on “Quit India”. Said he: “Not a
word of the Quit India resolution could be obliterated or altered. Indeed, if
anything is to come next, it will be Quit Asia.” Responded Sarat Bose,
thrilled with Sardar’s words: “The Sardar has always been a man of action.
He has never been a coiner of phrases. True, he coined one phrase and that
was Quit Asia."
During the absence of the Congress leaders from the national scene for
about three years (all were in jail), thanks to ‘Quit India’, while little was
gained, Jinnah and the Muslim League immensely strengthened their
position in the provinces—they also became favourites of the British.
FAILURE OF “QUIT INDIA”
‘Quit India’ momentum had petered out in about three months. The
impotence of the ‘Quit India’ became obvious from the fact that, despite
Gandhi’s call to the contrary, about half a million Indians joined the British
army between August and December 1942!
About two years after the “Quit India” call, when Gandhi was released,
there was no sign of the British packing up and quitting India. In fact, while
the British Raj remained unaffected, and the strength of the Muslim League
and Jinnah multiplied, the position of the Congress took a nose dive. It was
as if the Congress had “Quit” the national scene.
Logically, that was expected. If you don’t do any planning and
preparation, if you do no hard work, and instead, you just issue a call for
“Quit India”, how can you, and why should you expect it to succeed. You
don’t even anticipate the crackdown, and make no plan to go underground
to be able to direct the movement. You just get conveniently arrested soon
after the call, and waste away precious time in jail. You claim to be leaders,
but sitting in jail you wish the people would do the needful to somehow
deliver freedom. What wishful thinking!
Stated Churchill’s friend Page Croft: “The failure of Gandhi to rouse
India against the King-Emperor is one of the happiest events of the
war.”{PF/178}
Gandhi, British, and Quit India
Though apparently opposed, Gandhi and the British had been having a
good equation right since Gandhi’s South Africa days. With his harmless
creed of non-violence, and his services in sidelining and discrediting the
revolutionaries and the militant nationalists (who were the real threat), the
British were in a way obliged to Gandhi. As a quid pro quo, the British
helped enhance the stature of Gandhi, and took care to always render
special treatment to top Gandhians, especially in jails.
For all the talk of freedom, none of Gandhi’s movements earlier to “Quit
India” had an explicit agenda to make the British quit. For example, the
Rowlatt Satyagraha of 1919 was against the Rowlatt Acts; the Khilafat
Movement of 1920-22 was for protecting and re-installing the Khalifa; the
Non-cooperation Movement that went simultaneously with the former was
for “swaraj” or self-rule as a Dominion within the British Empire, and not
for complete independence (the Congress declared complete independence
as its goal only in 1930); the Salt Satyagraha of 1930 was to break Salt
laws; the Civil Disobedience Movement, that could be said to be the Phase-
II of the Salt Satyagraha, was to protest the government highhandedness.
With no real agitation against their continuance, the British were happy to
play along with Gandhi.
However, for the first time in the overlong Gandhian Freedom
Movement was a call given for the British to quit, with “Quit India”. And,
that too at a time when Britain was fighting with its back to the wall for its
own survival in the WW-II. That spoiled the special relationship between
Gandhi and the British—thanks especially to the Gandhian methods (of
non-violence and Gandhi’s opposition to the revolutionaries and the
revolutionary methods) that ensured little real harm to the British interests
—and the British turned anti-Gandhi and anti-Congress.
Gandhi actually miscalculated. Developments on the WW-II battlefronts
with the Axis powers advancing at lightning speed, and Allies on the
retreat, made Gandhi conclude the British were on the losing side. By
acting tough, he thought he could therefore bargain better with the British,
if they needed India’s cooperation to help them. However, the scene soon
reversed, when the Allies gained an upper hand. Further, Gandhi had
expected the Raj to negotiate with him, like it had done on earlier
occasions. But, to his dismay, the Raj just ignored him. Gandhi’s erroneous
reading of the situation resulted in his marginalisation by the British, who
later dropped him in favour of Nehru, who, behind the scenes, appeared
more amenable to them. Had Gandhi been smarter, he would have got the
hint when he had sent Mirabehn (Miss Madeleine Slade) to the Viceroy
before giving the “Quit India” call. The Viceroy had not only rebuffed her
he had made it amply clear that during the war-time the government won’t
tolerate any agitation—violent or non-violent—nor would it talk to any
representative of such planned agitation.{Gill/73} {Azad/84}. Had Gandhi been
pragmatic, and had he not miscalculated, he wouldn’t have given the “Quit
India” call then.
The fact of the matter was the British never considered Gandhism as a
threat, or as a force they could not easily tackle. They had been indulging
Gandhi in the past only because it suited them. The moment it sought to
become inconvenient, they simply crushed the movement, and ignored
Gandhi, and the Congress.
In retrospect it can be said that if Gandhi had continued to be on good
terms with the British, like he had been earlier, had he helped the British
unconditionally in WW-II, and had not got into “Quit India”, perhaps India
and the Congress would have been far better placed to negotiate the terms
of “Transfer of Power” with the British. Further, if the pro-Russia
Socialists-Leftists-Nehruvians had not come in the way, and Gandhi and the
Congress had assured Britain and the US co-operation in joint defence
matters, perhaps there would have been no Pakistan and Partition, or, at
least, Kashmir would have been settled in favour of India in 1947 itself.
Advantage Jinnah
Thanks to the dog-like loyalty of the Muslim League towards the
British; thanks to the resignations of the Congress ministries in 1939
following the declaration of war (WW-II) by the British on behalf of India
without consulting the Congress, resulting in severe contraction of the clout
and the power of the Congress; thanks to the Congress defying the British
power through “Quit India”, and coming in their bad books; and thanks to
the disappearance of the Congress from the national scene (most were
jailed) following the “Quit India” call, Jinnah and the Muslim League had
gained hugely.
Jinnah and the Muslim League managed to spread themselves wide.
They had formed ministries in Sind and Assam in 1942, and in Bengal and
NWFP in 1943. Besides, the British had become even more pro-Pakistan.
Those Muslim leaders who had kept a distance from the Muslim League
began to curry favour with Jinnah & Co now that they knew where the
power lay, and who the British favoured. Similarly, pro-Congress Muslims,
or those among the general Muslim public who were hitherto not too
enamoured by the Muslim League and Jinnah began to gravitate towards
them realising Pakistan was a possibility.
{ 4 }
BOSE(S), INA & THE ARMY MUTINY
RASH BEHARI BOSE
Born: 25 May 1886 in Subaldaha in Burdwan, Bengal.
Died: 21 January 1945 in Japan.
Rash Behari Bose initially studied at Chandernagore (in Bengal), then
under the French. He was inspired by the writings of Bankim Chandra
Chatterjee (Ananda Math and other books), Navin Sen (Plasir Yudha),
Swami Vivekananda, Surendranath Banerjea, and others. His teacher Charu
Chand in Chandernagore inspired him towards the revolutionary path.
He was the key organiser of the Ghadar Revolution of 1915, and was
later the founder of the Indian National Army (INA) in 1942 that was taken
over by Netaji Subhas.
Rash Behari and colleagues planned assassination of Viceroy Lord
Hardinge (Delhi Conspiracy Case), and made preparations for it for over a
year. Basant Kumar Bishwas, a committed revolutionary lad of 16, who
looked like a girl, played a key part in the actual execution: dressed as a girl
he had to throw bomb from the terrace of a building in Chandni Chowk on
to the Viceroyal procession, aiming Hardinge. If he failed, Rash Behari and
Awadh Behari were to complete the task. Practice for the purpose was done
over a long period at Dehradun where Rash Behari was employed as a head
clerk at the Forest Research Institute. Rash Behari and his “girl-friend”
Basant Kumar Bishwas reached Chandni Chowk on 11 December 1912.
The plan was executed on 12 December 1912. In a last minute change of
plan, it was Awadh Behari who executed the plan, seriously injuring (but
not killing) Hardinge.
Awadh Behari was later caught and hanged, but Rash Behari managed to
escape: he returned to Dehra Dun from Delhi the same night, and joined his
office the next day as if nothing had happened. Not only that, he organised a
meeting of “loyal” citizens of Dehradun to condemn the dastardly attack on
the Viceroy.
Rash Behari was indeed too smart for the British Police. On a number of
occasions he had outsmarted the police. So much so that there were even
rumours that he had occult powers.
Germans being opposed to the British in WW-I (like in WW-II later),
the revolutionaries like Rash Behari sought help from Germans to get arms
—this was called “Hindu-German Conspiracy”. During WW-I Rash Behari
became a leading figure of the Ghadar Revolution that attempted to trigger
a mutiny in the Indian Army in 1915. Upon failure of the Ghadar
Revolution, Rash Behari managed to escape British intelligence, and
reached Japan. Between 1915–1918, he changed residences and identities
numerous times, as the British kept pressing the Japanese government for
his extradition. In 1918, he married Aizō (Tosiko) Sōma, daughter of the
owners of Nakamuraya bakery in Tokyo, who were Pan-Asian supporters.
He became a Japanese citizen in 1923. Bose persuaded the Japanese
authorities to stand by the Indian nationalists, and to officially support the
Indian independence struggle abroad.
At a conference, Bose established the Indian Independence League (IIL)
in Tokyo in March 1942, and passed a resolution to raise an army for the
Indian independence. At the second conference of the League at Bangkok
on 22 June 1942, a resolution was adopted to invite Subhas Chandra Bose
to take command of the IIL as its president.
The Indian POWs captured by the Japanese on the Malaya and Burma
fronts were encouraged to join the IIL, and become part of the Indian
National Army (INA), also called 'Azad Hind Fauj', formed on 1 Sep 1942
as the military wing of Rash Behari's IIL.
Rash Behari knew many Indian languages and dialects. The Japanese
government honoured him with the highest title given to a foreigner—the
Second Order of Merit of the Rising Sun. Free India under the Nehru
Dynasty, and the Indian Leftist-Marxist “historians”, ignored him. Only in
2013 were his ashes brought from Japan by the mayor of Chandannagore
and immersed in the Hooghly river.
This is what Dr Bhagawan Singh Gyani, President of the Ghadar Party,
had said of Rashbehari Bose: “Revolutionary individuals are rare and of the
following categories: (1)There are those who rebel against conditions and
environments—personal, social, economic and natural. They complain,
whine and grumble and even occasionally protest, refusing to go along with
the established order. Under pressure, however, they will compromise, give
up the struggle, submit and follow the crowd. (2)There are revolutionaries
who are made of sterner staff. They are ready and willing to suffer and
sacrifice whether for an ideal, for the country or a deep conviction. They
seldom, if ever, are discouraged and usually work alone or in small circles.
(3)There are revolutionaries who are sages in their perceptions and
scientific in their attitude and genius in organising. They construct a clear
pattern of a new nation, they possess a unique capacity for fashioning a
social order, step by step, as they go along. They work together, coordinate
their plans and benefit from each other’s association. They learn in the light
of their own mistakes and particularly by the mistakes of others, and they
do not hesitate to alter or modify their plans if by so doing they may realise
their objective with dignity, efficiency and ease. They possess a volatile
personality, adaptable to any condition and always move ahead in spite of
obstacles. Our Shri Rash Behari Basu belonged to this (the third) category
of revolutionists.”
SUBHAS CHANDRA BOSE
Aka Netaji.
Born: 23 January 1897 in Cuttack, Odisha.
Died: Still a mystery.
Subhas was a brilliant student. He was expelled from the Presidency
College for assaulting Professor Oaten for the latter's anti-India comments.
He passed his BA in Philosophy in 1918 from the Scottish Church College
at the University of Calcutta. He left for England for higher studies in 1919.
He stood fourth in the order of merit in the ICS examination, and was
selected, but resigned from his civil service job on 23 April 1921 and
returned to India, as he was disinclined to serve an alien British
government. That was in sharp contrast to Nehru. Motilal Nehru
desperately wanted Jawaharlal Nehru to clear the ICS examination, and join
ICS, which he considered as the greatest service. However, Jawaharlal’s
mentors in England advised Motilal that Jawaharlal was incapable of
clearing the exam. Jawaharlal did his graduation in lower second division.
Bose started his political career in Bengal with Chittaranjan Das as his
mentor. In 1923, Bose was elected the President of All India Youth
Congress, and also the Secretary of Bengal State Congress. He was also
editor of the newspaper ‘Forward’. He worked as the CEO of the Calcutta
Municipal Corporation under Das who was elected as mayor.
Bose was arrested in 1925 for his nationalistic activities, and sent to a
prison in Mandalay (in Burma)—where he unfortunately contracted
tuberculosis. After release from prison in 1927, Bose became general
secretary of the Congress. Bose was again arrested during the Civil
Disobedience Movement. He was elected the Mayor of Calcutta in 1930.
Bose travelled widely in Europe during the mid-1930s, and met many top
leaders in various countries. He wrote his book ‘The Indian Struggle’,
which the British banned in India. During his visit to Germany in 1934, he
met and married an Austrian Emilie Schenkl. Their daughter is Anita Bose
Pfaff.
Bose became the Congress President in 1938, and again won election in
1939, despite Gandhi’s strong opposition. Gandhi, ‘The Apostle of Truth’
and a man of ‘High Morals’, was so rattled, he used all means, fair and foul,
to first defeat Bose, and when that failed, rather than accepting the defeat
gracefully, manoeuvred to oust Bose from Presidentship. Bose stood for
unqualified Swaraj, including the use of force against the British. That
brought him into conflict with pacifist Gandhi wedded to harmless non-
violence that suited the British Raj.
Bose organised the All India Forward Bloc as a faction within the Indian
National Congress on 22 June 1939.
Bose advocated a campaign of mass civil disobedience to protest
Viceroy Linlithgow's decision to declare war (WW-II) on India's behalf
without consulting the Congress. Failing to persuade Gandhi or the
Congress, he organised mass protests in Calcutta, and was arrested in July
1940. Released after a 7-day hunger strike, his house was put under CID-
surveillance. However, in a daredevil act, Bose managed to escaped on 19
January 1941 along with his nephew Sisir Bose. Remaining incognito, he
reached Germany via Afghanistan, Russia and Italy. The feat required
tremendous guts, intelligence, cunning, and risk-taking ability. Over Radio
Berlin, Indians heard Bose for the first time after about a year in March
1942 confirming his taking of help from the Axis Powers for Indian
independence.
In 1943, Bose travelled in the German submarine U-180 around the
Cape of Good Hope to the southeast of Madagascar, where he boarded a
Japanese submarine I-29 to Imperial Japan. Netaji Bose took charge of the
Indian National Army created, among others, by Rash Behari Bose.
It was claimed that Netaji Subhas had perished in a plane crash in Taipei
on 18 August 1945; and that his ashes are enshrined in Tokyo's Renkoji
temple. This was the version accepted by Nehru and the Congress, and was
the conclusion of the first two Enquiry Commissions on Netaji, who had
conveniently endorsed the government's position. However, Justice
Mukherjee Commission of Inquiry set up in 1999 during the Vajpayee's
NDA regime, following a Calcutta High Court Order, contradicted the
conclusions of the first two Enquiry Commissions. As per the Mukherjee
Commission Report: “...On a conspectus of all the facts and circumstances
relevant to the above issues it stands established that emplaning at Saigon
on August 17, 1945 Netaji succeeded in evading the Allied Forces and
escaping out of their reach and as a camouflage thereof the entire make-
believe story of the air crash, Netaji’s death therein and his cremation was
engineered by the Japanese army authorities including the two doctors and
Habibur Rahman and then aired on August 23, 1945...” For exhaustive
details in the matter, please refer to the chapter on Netaji in the author’s
book ‘Foundations of Misery: The Nehruvian Era 1947–64’ available on
Amazon, and the author’s blog-post:
http://rajnikantp.blogspot.in/2014/05/netaji-subhas-mystery.html
Apart from dragging its feet in instituting an enquiry into Netaji’s death,
manipulating the enquiry report, being hostile to INA, and not recognising
Netaji for Bharat Ratna, Nehru’s Government had been so hostile that in
1947 it refused to put up his portrait in the Parliament House.
Nehru and the Congress of independent India under him showed
unpardonable ingratitude to the real man behind India’s freedom.
As per an article on the web, in a confidential memo dated 11 February
1949 under the signature of Major General PN Khandoori the government
recommended: “The photos of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose be not
displayed at prominent places, Unit Lines, Canteens, Quarter Guards or
Recreation rooms.”
INDIAN NATIONAL ARMY (INA)
Japan and South-East Asia were the major refuges for exiled Indian
nationalists till WW-II. Rash Behari Bose had also managed to escape to
Japan.
During WW-II, Japan had sent intelligence missions, notably under
Major Iwaichi Fujiwara, into South Asia to gather support from the Malays,
overseas Chinese, Burmese resistance, and the Indian independence
movement.
The Wake Island and the Philippines, then under the US, fell to the
Japanese on 23 and 27 December 1941 respectively. Japan captured
Malaysia, then under the British, on 14 January 1942, taking 50,000 Allied
soldiers (many of whom were Indians) as prisoners of war. Japan also
captured parts of Indonesia. Next, Japan captured the British stronghold of
Singapore—aka the ‘Gibraltar of the East’—on 15 February 1942, taking
80,000 Allied soldiers (British, Indian, and Australian) as prisoners of war
(POWs). From these Indian POWs, the Japanese facilitated formation of the
Indian National Army under Captain Mohan Singh.
Earlier, at a conference, Rash Behari Bose had established the Indian
Independence League (IIL) in Tokyo in March 1942, and passed a
resolution to raise an army for the Indian independence. The Indian POWs
captured by the Japanese were encouraged to join the IIL, and become part
of the Indian National Army (INA), also called 'Azad Hind Fauj', formed on
1 Sep 1942 as the military wing of Rash Behari's IIL. Mohan Singh
dissociated with INA in December 1942. Overseen by Rash Behari, the
INA then came under Lt Col MZ Kiani and Lt Col JR Bhonsle, to whom Lt
Col Shah Nawaz Khan, Major PK Sahgal, Major Habib ur Rahman, and Lt
Col AC Chatterji reported.
Looking to his suitability and popularity Netaji Subhas Bose was invited
in 1943 to lead INA. Netaji reached Tokyo on 11 May 1943 after a three-
month long arduous journey by submarine from Germany, and a short stop
in Singapore. Later, Netaji reached Singapore in July 1943, and took
command of INA and IIL on 4 July 1943. He famously proclaimed: “Give
me blood! I will give you freedom.” Bose's magic appeal worked wonders
with even the civilian population: barristers, traders, plantation workers,
shopkeepers, young and old, men and women volunteered to work for IIL
or INA. The membership of the IIL peaked at 350,000. Over a lakh local
Indians in South-east Asia volunteered to join the INA. INA ultimately
reaching a force of 50,000.
INA’s various divisions were commanded by MZ Kiani, Inayat Kiani,
Gulzara Singh, Gurubaksh Singh Dhillon, Shah Nawaz Khan, and so on. Its
training school was led by Habib ur Rahman. A youth wing of the INA
comprising 45 young Indians personally chosen by Bose, called the Tokyo
Boys, was sent to Japan's Imperial Military Academy for training as fighter
pilots. An all-female unit, Jhansi ki Rani Regiment, was created under
Lakshmi Sahgal.
In October 1943, Bose proclaimed the formation of the Arzi Hukumat-e-
Azad Hind, or the Provisional Government of Free India (aka Azad Hind).
The INA (Azad Hind Fauz) was declared the army of Azad Hind. On 23
October 1943, Azad Hind declared war against Britain and the US. INA
operated mostly in the North-East and Burma. With the fall of the Axis
powers that included Japan, INA too suffered. Many INA soldiers were
arrested by the British-Indian army.
As expected from Nehru and the Congress, rather that honouring and
rewarding them, the INA-veterans were debarred from the Indian Army by
the Government of independent India! Why? Because, that was the way the
British and Mountbatten wanted, as INA soldiers had fought against them.
That was in sharp contrast to Jinnah who had inducted Muslim INA soldiers
into the Pakistani army. The INA personnel remained ineligible for the
Freedom Fighters Pension till 1972.
Captain Ram Singh Thakur (1914–2002) was an INA soldier of Nepali
origin. He was also a musician and a composer. His famous patriotic
compositions include “Kadam Kadam Badhaye Ja, khushi kē geet gāē jā, yē
zīndagi hai qâum kī, tū qâum pē lūtāē jā...” and “Subh Sukh Chain”. His
final years were difficult. He was also initially denied the status of a
freedom fighter by the government.
INA TRIALS, NOV 1945—MAY 1946
About 10 courts-martial, famous as the Red Fort Trials 1945-6, against
the INA top-brass were held in public at the Red Fort in Delhi, with the
British and their Commander-in-Chief in India, Claude Auchinleck, hoping
the trials would turn the public opinion against the INA. However, the
reverse happened. The first and most celebrated joint courts-martial was of
Prem Sahgal, Gurubaksh Singh Dhillon and Shah Nawaz Khan of INA: a
Hindu, a Sikh, and a Muslim. People realised that the INA represented a
true, secular, national army; in sharp contrast to the British-Indian Army,
where caste and religions reflected in the naming and organisation of the
regiments. Seen as the real fighters for freedom of India, a huge sympathy
wave was generated in their favour.
Despite considerable legal defence, the accused were sentenced to
transportation for life. But, the sentence was not carried out. The trials
unleashed massive patriotic fervour. It also caused unease and unrest among
the Indian troops of the Raj. Realising how the general public was agitated
about the trials, and how most in the army sympathised with the accused,
the Raj thought it prudent not to push things further towards alienation of
the public and the army. Immense public pressure forced the then Army
Chief Field Marshal Claude Auchinleck to commute the sentences. All the
three accused were released in January 1946. The Raj’s climb down
signalled imminence of the Indian independence. It prompted Sardar Patel
to remark: “The British had only to be helped to roll up their bedding and
depart!”
Writes Michael Edwardes in his book “Last Years of British India”:
“The Government of India had hoped, by prosecuting members of the INA,
to reinforce the morale of the Indian army. It succeeded only in creating
unease, in making the soldiers feel slightly ashamed that they themselves
had supported the British. If Bose and his men had been on the right side—
and all India now confirmed that they were—then Indians in the Indian
army must have been on the wrong side. It slowly dawned upon the
Government of India that the backbone of the British rule, the Indian army,
might now no longer be trustworthy. The ghost of Subhas Bose, like
Hamlet's father, walked the battlements of the Red Fort (where the INA
soldiers were being tried), and his suddenly amplified figure overawed the
conference that was to lead to independence.”
Incidentally, the Congress had all through opposed Subhas and INA, yet
a lot is made of Nehru donning his lawyer’s robes to fight for INA soldiers
in their trial by the British in 1945, although the defence was led by
Bhulabhai Desai. The actual reality was that elections were imminent, and
INA and Bose being the people’s favourites, Congress and Nehru wanted to
get cheap popularity and get votes by projecting themselves as pro-INA to
win elections. Notably, it was Nehru who had remarked he would take arms
against Bose when Bose was on the borders of Assam with his INA.
Says Anuj Dhar in his book ‘India’s Biggest Cover-up’: “The British
saw through the Congressmen’s change of heart. Commander-in-Chief of
British Indian armed forces General Claude Auchinleck wrote to Field
Marshal Viscount Wavell on 24 November 1945 that ‘the present INA trials
are agitating all sections of Indian public opinion deeply and have also
provided the Congress with an excellent election cry.’...Captain Badhwar
reported that the Congress leaders’ turnaround had little to do with any love
for their ousted former president [Bose] or the people who fought under his
command...He [Asaf Ali—CWC member] travelled across India and
discovered that people were overwhelmingly in support of the INA. ‘This
inflamed feeling forced Congress to take the line it did,’ Badhwar said...Ali
was positive that as and when Congress came to power, they ‘would have
no hesitation in removing all INA from the Services and even in putting
some of them to trial.’...The top Congress leadership’s duplicitous
disapproval of Bose and INA was exposed by numerous pre-1947
statements made by its leaders, especially Nehru.”
MUTINY IN THE INDIAN ARMY, FEB 1946
INA trials also triggered unrest in the Indian armed forces. Mutiny
broke out in the Royal Indian Navy (RIN) covering ships and shore
establishments throughout India from Karachi to Bombay and from
Vishakhapatnam to Calcutta.
Rebellion among the naval ratings in RIN (Royal Indian Navy) started at
Bombay on 19 February 1946. Thrilled by the INA fight and trials, they
wanted to contribute their strength towards India’s freedom. The insulting
behaviour of the senior British military officers had also contributed to the
disenchantment of the Indian military staff. FW King, the British
commanding officer of the HMIS Talwar, used to call his Indian men ‘black
buggers’, ‘jungli Indians’, and ‘coolie bastards’. The naval ratings took over
HMIS Talwar and signal school, and hauled down the Union Jack. The
NCSC (Naval Central Strike Committee) was set up, and several ships
which were seized began flying the flags of the Congress and the Muslim
League. The mutiny quickly spread to other ships, and over 7000 sailors
joined in. Some of the warships seized threatened to fire at the British
barracks, and at British community bastions on the seafront. On 21
February 1946 there was an exchange of fire between the loyal troops and
the naval ratings on mutiny. At some places, Indian army men began
ignoring orders from the British superiors. In Madras and Pune, the British
garrisons had to face revolts. On 22 February 1946 naval ratings located at
land and sea across the country mutinied.
In the second half of February 1946 members of the Royal Indian Air
Force (RIAF) went on a hunger strike for their grievances. RAIF personnel
at Allahabad, Delhi, Karachi, Madras, and Pune also revolted.
Another Army mutiny took place at Jabalpur during the last week of
February 1946. It lasted about two weeks. It was suppressed by force. Later,
many were court-martialled and sentenced. A number of them were
dismissed.
Many workers, students and members of the general public took to the
streets in protest. The mutineers began to receive significant militant
support from the general public. By 19 February 1946 over 3,00,000 mill-
workers and dockers of the naval dockyard went on strike.
Planning to take their agitation forward by teaming up with the Indian
political parties, they approached the Congress leader Aruna Asaf Ali who
happened to be then in Bombay. Aruna Asaf Ali, however, was not of much
help, and directed them to Sardar Patel.
However, with no support forthcoming from the political parties, and
totally cornered, the naval ratings were left with no options. As a last resort,
they approached Sardar Patel, who telling them there ought to be discipline
in the navy, advised them to surrender! In tears, the NCSC President MS
Khan conveyed Sardar Patel’s message to his colleagues on 22 February
1946. By then the mutiny was in its fourth day. Sardar Patel had, however,
assured them that if they surrender, the Congress would do all it could to
ensure there was no victimisation, and that their legitimate demands were
met. Muslims among the naval ratings then desired to know what Jinnah
had to say. It later turned out that Jinnah’s advice was no different from that
of Patel. The mutiny terminated on 23 February 1946. Over 230 lost their
lives and over a thousand were injured in the mutiny and the associated
rioting in Bombay.
The British Commander-in-Chief Field Marshall Claude Auchinleck
recorded: “It is no use shutting one’s eye to the fact that any Indian worth
his salt is a nationalist… Wholesale defections and disintegration of the
Indian Army was possible.”
What is noteworthy is that the above—INA, INA trials, and the mutinies
in the army, navy and air-force that led to drastic erosion in the British
authority—contributed far more to gaining independence for India than the
Gandhian movement of over three decades.
{ 5 }
GANDHIAN VS. OTHER FREEDOM MOVEMENTS
MASS FREEDOM MOVEMENT BEFORE GANDHI
A false picture has been painted depicting that the real freedom
movement, and mass participation in it, happened only after Gandhi took up
the reins. This is far from truth.
The first mass movement in which Gandhi participated was the Rowlatt
Satyagraha of 1919, which later led to the Jallianwala Massacre of 1919.
There were many leaders involved, and Gandhi was not the principal leader.
In fact, it being the first mass movement in which he had participated,
Gandhi was surprised at the response, and the participation of the masses.
The excellent response of the masses was thanks to the ground prepared
over the last many, many years by the inspiring personalities like Dayanand
Saraswati, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee and Swami Vivekananda; stalwarts
like Naoroji, Gokhale, Tilak, Aurobindo Ghosh, Lal-Bal-Pal, Malviya, CR
Das; and revolutionaries like Chapekar Brothers, Shyamji Krishna Varma,
Madan Lal Dhingra, Madame Bhikaji Rustom Cama, Lala Har Dayal, Veer
Savarkar, Rash Behari Bose, Khudiram Bose, Sachindranath Sanyal, and so
on. To minimise the role of these personalities, and to shore up only Gandhi
& Co is to be patently dishonest, something Gandhi, the ‘Apostle of Truth”,
would have abhorred.
The Swadeshi and Boycott Movements started more than a decade
before Gandhi became active in India. The ‘Vandemataram Movement’,
also called the ‘Swadeshi Movement’ to boycott British manufactured
goods was started in 1905 for Bengal’s re-unification. A large number of
young leaders in Bengal took up the task of educating people with the
Swadeshi spirit. In 1905, Aurobindo Ghosh wrote ‘Vawani Mandir’
containing, inter alia, the plans and programmes for the freedom fighters. A
call was given to boycott state-run institutions, and even quit government
jobs.
The Movement had so percolated the masses that reportedly the
cobblers in Mymensingh (now in Bangladesh) refused to mend shoes of the
British; the Oriya cooks and servants refused to serve those who used
foreign goods; and the washermen of Kalighat decided not to wash foreign
clothes! Gandhi’s swadeshi and boycott of foreign goods was only a copy
of what had been done over a decade earlier.
Tilak’s mobilisation of people through his papers and large-scale
celebrations of religious festivals is well-known.
Gandhi’s first major movement, the Khilafat Movement of 1920-22, was
actually started and led by a group of Muslim leaders. Gandhi joined them.
It can therefore be said that mass awareness and mass movement was
already there when Gandhi came on the scene.
STELLAR ROLE OF REVOLUTIONARIES & NETAJI
Much is made of Gandhi, the Gandhians, and the Congress in the
freedom struggle, ignoring, or according a lesser place, to those who really
mattered.
How can one forget the numerous tribal uprisings, notably those by the
Santhals in 1855. Indigo cultivators in Bihar bravely rose against the
European overlords who compelled them to grow indigo. Gandhi’s
Champaran campaign was thanks to them.
Books, poems and novels (particularly ‘Anand Math’) of Bankim
Chandra Chatterjee (1838–1894) fired up the people. It was Bankim who
composed the famous national song ‘Vande Mataram’. Exhortations of
Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) helped dormant self-respect and
patriotism rise to the fore. Lal-Bal-Pal (Lala Lajpat Rai, Bal Gangadhar
Tilak, Bipin Chandra Pal) stirred up the youth.
A pioneering role in the international spread of the freedom movement
was played by Shyamji Krishna Varma (1857–1930). He founded the India
House in London, arranged scholarship for bright Indians, and promoted
revolutionaries and their activities—Madan Lal Dhingra, Madame Bhikaji
Rustom Cama, Lala Har Dayal, Veer Savarkar, etc. came from his stable.
Lala Har Dayal (1884–1939) became a professor at the University of
California in the US, and founded the Ghadar Party. Madame Cama set up
the Bande Matram Group in Paris.
Rash Behari Bose (1886–1945) co-ordinated efforts to foment
disaffection in the armed forces. He was the key organiser of the Ghadar
Revolution and the INA (Indian National Army).
Among the major other revolutionaries were Chapekar Brothers,
Khudiram Bose, Sachindranath Sanyal (Hindustan Republican
Association), Chandrashekhar Azad, Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev, Shivaram
Rajguru, Batukeshwar Dutt, Surya Sen (Chittagong Armoury Raid of April
1930), Jatin Das, Bejoy Kumar Sinha, Shiv Verma, Ramprasad Bismil,
Rajendra Lahiri, Ashfaqulla Khan, and many, many more.
Sadly, the rise of Gandhi led to the decline of revolutionary activities. In
fact, the British Raj and the British media helped Gandhi have a much
larger than life profile of a Mahatma to discredit and curb what really
rattled them—the violence of the revolutionaries—through his (Gandhi’s)
non-violence propaganda.
However, thanks to last of the revolutionaries Netaji Subhas and his
INA defying Gandhi, Gandhism, and the Congress, the all-round massive
national enthusiasm and patriotism generated by them, particularly in the
wake of the INA Red-fort trials, and the Indian army mutinies provoked by
them, the revolutionary violence ultimately led to India’s freedom.
EFFECTIVENESS OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL METHODS
Following the Act of 1858 that turned India into a British colony, the
Indian Councils Act of 1861 expanded the Supreme Legislative Council,
and the Provincial Councils of Bombay and Madras to provide for inducting
Indians into the higher echelons of the government. The Local Self
Government Acts of 1883-84 provided for elections to local bodies like
District Councils and Rural Boards. The Councils Act of 1892 further
expanded the membership of Indians in the Supreme and Provincial
Legislative Councils. Indians were inducted into the Secretary of State’s
Council and the Governor General’s Council in 1907. The Indian Councils
Act of 1909, incorporating the Morley-Minto Reforms, took this gradual
process further.
Thanks to the constitutional methods adopted by the freedom fighters
prior to Gandhi’s active participation on the Indian scene, the Government
of India Act 1919 (aka the Reforms Act) that sought to gradually introduce
self-governing institutions in India was already in place, following the
Montagu–Chelmsford (Mont-Ford, in short) Reforms of 1918. It was at
Gandhi’s instance that this Reforms Act of 1919 was endorsed by the
Congress, despite the Jallianwala Bagh tragedy. When Tilak had opposed it,
and had opined it could be accepted only to highlight its inadequacies,
Gandhi had gone to the extent of putting his cap at Tilak’s feet to secure his
consent for unreserved support.{Gill/43}
However, Gandhi’s views took an opportunistic turn with the dawn of
the Khilafat Movement in 1920. He started calling the Act of 1919 as a
“death trap”? Why this about turn? Gandhi wanted to endear himself with
the Muslims and the Muslim leadership through their Khilafat Movement.
Thus, rather than working further with the constitutional methods, and
taking the process of self-government forward, Gandhi vitiated the
atmosphere through his support for the regressive Khilafat Movement, that
fetched nothing for the country, and did the opposite of what Gandhi had
hoped to achieve: bring about Hindu-Muslim unity.
A golden opportunity to work further on the constitutional methods
(which Jinnah desired) was lost on account of the Gandhi’s Khilafat
Movement. If the constitutional route had been followed by Gandhi,
hopefully India would have attained the Dominion Status (as good as full
independence) before the 1930s.
In 1923 Gandhi rejected the ‘Councils Entry’ proposal of the Swaraj
Party which would have taken further the constitutional way to freedom (pl.
see under ‘Swaraj Party’ above’)—something which he allowed over a
decade later, following the GoI Act 1935.
Wrote Durga Das: “Not long after, [CR] Das, convalescing from an
illness at Mashobra, a suburb of Simla, revealed to me his sense of
desperation. Gandhi, he felt, was leading the country away from the path of
constitutional struggle into the wilderness of sterile political agitation…
‘How can we get rid of the Mahatma,’ he exclaimed, ‘and put the people
back on the road to the capture of power, now within our grasp.’ The same
feeling of bewilderment and frustration was expressed to me on other
occasions by Motilal Nehru and Vithalbhai Patel. Gandhi, they seemed
convinced then, was rendering it impossible to fight the British with
weapons they understood and respected; his own way of civil disobedience
would take the nation nowhere.”{DD/116}
Despite all the non-cooperation of the Congress, and non-participation
in two of the three Round Table Conferences, the Government of India Act
1935 did come into force, and opened the way for further self-government.
Gradually, both the civil services and the army were largely Indianised,
except at senior levels, which too were thrown open to Indians. The
Congress did participate in the elections that were a consequence of the
1935-act, and started ruling in eight provinces.
In short, while the Gandhian non-violent non-cooperation of two
decades fetched little, the British, despite the Congress tantrums did bring
in constitutional changes that allowed the Congress to rule in eight
provinces by 1937!
Rather than making a success of it, and taking it further, Gandhi and the
Congress (particularly Nehru, backed by the Leftists) again ruined the
opportunity by getting the Congress governments to resign in 1939,
unwisely deciding to not co-operate with the British in the Second World
War, and launching “Quit India” in 1942—yet another failed movement!
ADVERSE EFFECT OF GANDHIAN INTERVENTION
What did Gandhi achieve by sidelining the followers of both the
Constitutional Methods and the Revolutionary Methods? Three things. One:
Delayed achievement of freedom for India—delay by about two decades.
Two: Partition. Three: Pakistan.
If Gandhi had not come on the scene in 1915, and the co-ordination of
the Constitutionalists and the Revolutionaries had continued—undisturbed,
unsubdued and uncompromised by Gandhism—then perhaps the freedom
would have been gained much earlier, and India would not have born the
heavy cost of freedom: Partition and Pakistan.
Gandhian methods actually suited the British in multiple ways. One:
The Gandhian non-violence techniques never had the potential to harm the
British interests or destabilise them. Two: Engaging people in the Gandhian
techniques of fasting, khadi, satyagraha, and so on lulled people into a false
sense of feeling of fighting for freedom. It made the public busy on a
harmless path for freedom—harmless for the British. Three: It discredited
what really adversely affected the British: revolutionary activities, and
violent opposition.
Gandhian methods were also supported by the Indian and British
business and trading interests, who always looked to peace, stability, and
non-violence to protect and advance their material interests. No wonder
most big business houses funded Gandhi, while none supported the
revolutionaries.
Of course, the question arises that if the means were to be non-violent
then why didn’t Gandhi adopt and take forward the constitutional methods
like Gokhale, Jinnah, and others. The reason is that the constitutional
methods, by their very nature, remained restricted to leadership, and did not
extend to masses. Hence, they were not popular. In sharp contrast, the
militant and revolutionary methods made better appeal, and were more
popular and effective. That is why, while Gokhale was not popular, Tilak
was popular. And, aware of this severe handicap, it was Gokhale who had
persuaded Gandhi to return from South Africa to India, to somehow shore
up the scales for the constitutionalists. Britain had welcomed Gandhi’s
arrival into India.
British had awarded Gandhi several medals in South Africa, and
awarded him another (‘Kaiser-I-Hind’ gold medal) soon after arrival in
1915. Realising that constitutional methods would not be popular, and
would not make him a top leader, Gandhi chose an in-between path.
Agitate, but non-violently. Engage people in various harmless and
“constructive” activities so that they get a feel something is happening. The
British must have been happy—indeed, they must have been very thankful
to Gandhi. Keep people busy in harmless activities, so that they (the
British) remained unharmed.
COMPARISON: HOW & WHEN OTHER COUNTRIES GOT FREEDOM
Congress dragged on with its independence movement for too long a
period of 40 years—tiring and sapping all! Despite that, it remained a minor
factor in gaining independence for India, as we have seen above.
In sharp contrast, George Washington and team attained their aim within
eight years of fighting with the British, and created a new nation. The
American War of Independence (1775–1783) was won in 8 years through
violent means.
Or, compare Gandhi & Co with the South American leader Simon
Bolivar of Venezuela, after whom the country Bolivia was named. He
liberated not just one, but six countries from the Spanish rule—Venezuela,
Colombia, Panama (included in Colombia at that time), Ecuador, Peru and
Bolivia! And, he achieved all this through his military campaign lasting
mere 13 years. He died at a relatively young age of 47.
The British Empire had chosen to grant the Dominion Status to its four
major colonies of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa well
before the Second World War, allowing them a large measure of self-
government; while India got the Dominion Status much later in 1947.
Commonwealth of Australia became a dominion of the British Empire way
back on 1 January 1901. New Zealand’s independence was a gradual
process that began in 1835; and it gained the Dominion Status in 1907.
Canada was formed as a federal dominion of four provinces in 1867, and
gained official autonomy with the Statute of Westminster of 1931. South
Africa got its independence in 1934.
How was it that these four major colonies could gain the Dominion
Status, while India kept struggling for its freedom for decades? And, despite
the fact that India contributed more to the British WW-I efforts than all the
colonies combined, and Gandhi, despite his creed of non-violence,
personally helped the British in army recruitment.
It is also worth noting that many colonies—British and of other
European nations—got their independence around the time India got its
independence, whether or not they had any significant freedom movements.
That was because the territorial colonial enterprises were no longer
profitable; and the colonising nations were not inclined to continue with
them any further. For example, Burma (Myanmar) gained independence
from the British on 4 January 1948; and Sri Lanka was granted the
Dominion Status by the British on 4 January 1948, though neither had
significant freedom movements.
Here is a short, select (incomplete) list of countries that were the
colonies under the British Raj, and gained independence either before India,
or shortly after India got independence.
In Chronological Order
Country Date of Independence/Remarks
Canada 1 July 1867 (Dominion Status).
Canada Day.
Australia 1 January 1901 (Dominion Status).
New Zealand 26 September 1907 (Dominion Status). Dominion
Day.
South Africa 11 December 1910 (Dominion Status).
Afghanistan 19 August 1919.
The Anglo-Afghan Treaty of 1919: It was more of a
border agreement, because technically Afghanistan
was never a part of the British Empire.
Egypt 28 February 1922.
Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1936.
Became a Republic in 1953.
Ireland 6 December 1922 (Dominion Status).
Iraq 3 October 1932.
Jordon The Emirate of Transjordan:
11 April 1921
The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan: 25 May 1946.
Pakistan 14 August 1947
(Dominion Status).
India 15 August 1947
(Dominion Status).
Myanmar 4 January 1948.
Sri Lanka 4 February 1948.
Country Date of Independence/Remarks
Israel 14 May 1948.
Birth-place of Jews, and their oldest nation, became
a “new” nation.
Actually, Israel should have become a nation along
with the Emirate of Transjordan (pl. see above) on 11
April 1921 from the remaining land of the British
Mandate for Palestine.
Sudan 1 January 1956.
Malaysia 31 August 1957.
Singapore 9 August 1965.
Singapore gained independence from Malaysia.
GANDHI’S “MY WAY OR THE HIGHWAY”
Prior to Gandhi, India’s independence efforts were through several
strategies. You had the constitutionalists following the legal, constitutional
methods. You had revolutionaries of various hues endeavouring to
overthrow the yoke of the British slavery through violent means. And, there
were groups that steered mid-way. But, none tried to pull the other down, or
show off oneself as right, and the others wrong. It was a joint effort, even if
not co-ordinated. But, each had respect and sympathy for the other.
However, with the coming in of Gandhi, it was only “his way or the
highway”! That is, all the other means were sought to be discredited. The
untested non-violent satyagraha was the only means!
Predominantly constitutional means would have yielded the results if the
Congress had made a convincing show (even if they would have done
whatever was genuinely good for India after gaining self-rule) of protecting
the British interests even after gaining self-rule and independence—the
Congress needed to be tactical and clever.
Revolutionary means would have also yielded results had they been
well-planned and well-financed, and were intensified. One of the crucial
deciding factors would have been generating patriotism among the forces of
state violence, that is, police, army, and bureaucracy, by resorting to
systematic, covert propaganda.
Combination of the constitutional and the revolutionary, and the middle
way, if co-ordinated, would have yielded faster results.
Unfortunately, the Gandhian way, that discredited and displaced all the
alternate ways, actually proved to be God-sent for the British, for it ensured
the British could continue indefinitely. No wonder the Raj, aided by the
British media, left no stone unturned to project Gandhi as a Mahatma, and
deviously used his profile and services to discredit and finish off the
alternate forces that were the real threat to them.
Taking the various aspects into account, it seems India would have
gained independence about two decades earlier had Gandhi not come into
the picture.
While the revolutionaries whole-heartedly supported Gandhi in his
“Khilafat and Non-Cooperation Movement (KNCM)” of 1920-22, even
suspending their activities during the period, Gandhi never reciprocated.
Gandhi was arrogant and conceited enough to think only his way was the
right way (which actually delivered zilch). And, by condemning the
revolutionary way he actually helped the British.
An 18-year-old revolutionary Gopinath Saha killed Ernest Day on 12
January 1924 by mistake when he actually aimed to kill Charles Tegart, a
notorious Police Commissioner. Saha expressed his sorrow at killing the
wrong person. He stated: “May every drop of my blood sow the seeds of
freedom in every home of India.” He was hanged in March 1924. The
BPCC paid a tribute to Saha's ideal of self sacrifice, while disassociating
itself from the violence. However, Gandhi strongly disapproved, and forced
a resolution at the AICC in June 1924 strongly disapproving Saha's action
as misguided love of the country; commiserated with the family of Ernest
Day, but had not a word of condemnation for the hanging of teenaged Saha,
or sympathy for his family. Was Gandhi doing all this to remain in the good
books of the British?
Revolutionary Shachindranath Sanyal of the Hindustan Republican
Association (HRA) who had supported Gandhi in KNCM wrote to him in
1924 that although he (Gandhi) had promised swaraj within a year in 1920,
nothing much had happened even after a lapse of over four years despite all
the willing-support of millions, including revolutionaries, and funding far in
excess of what Gandhi had asked for (Rs. one crore), and therefore Gandhi
should either retire, or at least not become a hindrance to the revolutionary
movement: “…These are the Indian revolutionaries. They have now
decided to remain silent no more and therefore they request you to retire
from the political field or else to direct the political movement in a way so
that it may be a help and not a hindrance to the revolutionary movement…”
About avenging the death of Lala Lajpat Rai (in the brutal police lathi-
charge) by Shahid Bhagat Singh, Raj Guru, Jai Gopal and Sukhdev by
killing Assistant Superintendent of Police JP Saunders in Lahore on 17
December 1928, Gandhi had this to say: “The assassination of the Assistant
Superintendent Mr. Saunders of Lahore was a dastardly act… I wish
however that it was possible to convince the hot youth of the utter futility of
such revenge. Whatever the Assistant Superintendent did was done in
obedience to instructions… There is equally none in the deliberate secret
assassination of an innocent police officer who has discharged his duty
however disagreeable its consequences may be for the community to which
the assassin belongs… After all the story of the building of the British
Empire is not itself wanting in deeds of valour, adventure and sacrifice
worthy, in my opinion, of a better cause. If we may regard the assassination
of Saunders as a heroic deed the British people would be able to answer this
one, I hope, solitary act of so-called heroism with countless such acts
enough to fill a volume.” This amounts to Gandhi saying: Don’t engage in
revolutionary acts (even if the British kill your leaders), because the British
would then take bigger revenge!
Revolutionary Bhagwati Charan Vohra, a colleague of Chandrashekhar
Azad, wrote in an article 1930 that since the Congress had “changed its
creed from Swaraj to Complete Independence [on 31 December 1929]”, as
a “logical sequence to this, one would expect it to declare a war on the
British Government. Instead, we find, it [Congress] has declared war
against the revolutionaries…”
Sometimes one wonders if Gandhi was more anti-Revolutionaries than
he was anti-British.
EXTRACTS FROM ‘GUILTY MEN OF INDIA’S PARTITION’
Here are certain relevant extracts from Ram Manohar Lohia’s book ,
‘Guilty Men of India’s Partition’:
“…The friendly politeness of the struggle for freedom has so far
prevented its proper evaluation. It is assumed that this struggle was less
costly than a violent fight or that it did not leave behind such bitterness and
disorder which a violent revolution would have occasioned or that it made a
continuity of ideals and habits easier. All these assumptions need to be
closely inspected. Some of them are patently wrong. I must again and again
emphasise the terrible and unparalleled cost of Partition as a part of the total
expenditure of our freedom struggle..
“…I should like to advance an additional point and also to puncture yet
another assumption that a violent revolution against the British empire in
India would not have succeeded, while the non-violent struggle did…
“The Indian struggle had, by the outbreak of the First World War,
reached a two-pronged stage of fairly experienced constitutionalism as well
as a pretty sharp terrorism… The cleverer people were going into
constitutionalism. The braver people were going into terrorism. I suspect
that there was a deep understanding, something like an unspoken and
unwritten contract, between these two wings of patriots, until Gandhiji
introduced such principles as caused antagonism between them.
“The constitutionalists and the terrorists would have gone on to intensify
their campaigns with time. More and more people would have been drawn
into the scope of their activities. A certain pattern of alternation would have
held the field free to constitutionalists for a decade or so during which they
would have tried to infect the entire people through their speeches and other
parliamentary manoeuvres with a desire for freedom. A state would then be
reached when the blocking of freedom’s desire would have become
intolerable. At this stage, the terrorists would come on the scene and
operate for a year or two. With each such alteration, constitutionalists would
have gained in experience and skill and mass following, and the terrorists
would also have been able to evolve forms of action towards organised and
mass violence, during which assassination would have played no role other
than that of vengeance or sparking a conflict…
“There is again no reason to believe that this team would have needed
more than three alternations to achieve its objective, it would certainly not
have needed to go beyond the Second World War. In fact, it might have
needed less time to achieve success than Mahatma Gandhi’s non-violence…
“…There is indeed a possibility that India without Gandhiji would have
been more happily placed, at least in the short run. Gandhiji’s mode of
action has no validity or value, if it does not spread over the whole world [It
has NOT]. It has value if only the future so unfolds itself that the temporary
loss of India can be proved to have been the world’s gain…”
NATURE OF THE GANDHIAN FREEDOM MOVEMENT
HAVE-ALL-THE-TIME-IN-THE-WORLD-TO-GET-FREEDOM MINDSET
As we saw under the subchapter “Freedom Movement: Comparison
with Other Countries”, while the American War of Independence (1775–
1783) was won in mere 8 years; Simon Bolivar of Venezuela liberated not
just one, but six countries from the Spanish rule in 13 years, and died at a
relatively young age of 47.
In sharp contrast, the Gandhian freedom movement went on and on with
Gandhi’s arrival on the scene in 1915. Counting from 1915, it took 32 long
years! And, even after those 32 long years, it was not freedom won or
wrested from the British, but a willing transfer of power by them—and on
their terms, such as partition of India.
What was truly distinguishing about the Gandhian freedom movement
was its leisurely, laid-back, have-all-the-time-in-the-world-to-get-freedom
attitude and mindset. There was no constant, intensive struggle. It was a
once-in-a-decade movement: ‘Khilafat and Non-cooperation Movement’
(KNCM) of 1920-22; Dandi March and Salt Satyagraha of 1930, and its
Phase-II (CDM: Civil Disobedience Movement) of 1932; and, lastly, Quit
India of 1942. That is, the three major Gandhian movements lasted for
about 2 years in the decade of 1920s, four months in the decade of 1930s,
and a few months in the decade of 1940s!
Gandhi indulged in jumping into and out of the Congress, as suited his
fads. Around 1924 he got out of the Congress. Later, after rejoining, he
again resigned from the Congress in 1934 devoting himself to what he
called “constructive work”. Did he regard his political work as destructive?
Why not first free the country from the British, then get into that
“constructive work”? But, no, freedom could wait, there was no hurry.
Gandhi’s diversion into the “constructive work” suited the government.
Viceroy Lord Willingdon wrote to the Secretary of State: “This
development suits us and I would certainly do nothing to disturb it.”
Commented Aurobindo Ghosh: “Political freedom is the life-breath of a
nation. To attempt social reform, educational reform, industrial expansion,
the moral improvement of the race without aiming first and foremost at
political freedom, is the very height of ignorance and futility. The primary
requisite for national progress, national reform, is the habit of free and
healthy national thought and action which is impossible in a state of
servitude.”
Perhaps Gandhi’s “constructive” work was a diversionary tactic.
Reluctant to take on the British, he tried to keep down the charged-up
public by trying to engage them in “time-pass” activities like charkha-
khadi, and so on—elevating those “time-pass” activities to a status higher
than the attainment of freedom itself!
Here is another example of the Gandhian Movement being leisurely and
laid-back. Wrote Maulana Azad{Azad/102}: “As he was leaving [along with
Azad and others, Ahmednagar Fort Jail in 1945 after three long years of
incarceration], Jawaharlal [Nehru]… requested me that I should not call a
meeting of the Working Committee or the AICC [Azad was the Congress
President then] immediately on release. He said he wanted a little time for
rest [what were they doing for three years in jail—was it not forced rest?]
and recreation and also in order to finish a book on India [Discovery of
India] which he was writing.”
AD HOC & UNPLANNED
There were no detailed mutual discussions by Gandhi with the other
leaders and state-holders, no spelling out of specific aims, no agreed-upon
detailed plan and focus, no distribution of specific responsibilities, no
chalking out of strategies and tactics in any of the three so-called major
once-in-a-decade Gandhian movements of early-1920s, early-1930s, and
early-1940s. No wonder, none of them were successful.
Even top leaders were unaware what exactly Gandhi had in mind. Did
Gandhi himself know? Stated Nehru of the early-1930s Civil Disobedience
Movement: “Still we were vague about the future… What, after all, was he
[Gandhi] aiming at? In spite of my close association with him for many
years, I am not clear in my own mind about his objective. I doubt if he is
clear himself.”
On Quit India, Nehru had this to comment{Gill/73}: “Neither in public nor
in private meetings of the Congress Working Committee did he [Gandhi]
hint at the nature of action he had in mind, except a one-day general strike.
So neither he nor the CWC issued any kind of directions, public or private,
except that people should be prepared for all developments and should in
any even adhere to the policy of peaceful and non-violent action.”
Gandhi’s speech giving Quit India call on 8 August 1942 stated that
“every Indian who desires freedom and strives for it must be his own guide”
amply demonstrated there was no well thought-out, co-ordinated plan.
Leave people to their devices, while leaders disappear to the relative
comfort and safety of jails—top Gandhians were well looked-after in the
British jails. This irresponsible ad-hocism of Gandhi led to confusion,
sporadic and un-coordinated actions, pointless destruction of public
property, and ultimately suppression of the movement in about two months.
FREEDOM MOVEMENTS THAT DIDN’T DEMAND FREEDOM
It sounds odd and unbelievable that but for the solitary exception of
“Quit India”, none of the Gandhian “Freedom” Movements demanded
complete freedom from the British!
All the major movements like the “Rowlatt Satyagraha 1919”, or the
“Khilafat and Non-Cooperation Movement 1920-22” (KNCM), or the “Salt
Satyagraha 1930”, or the “Civil Disobedience Movement 1932” (except the
“Quit India 1942”) comprised demands other than “complete freedom from
the British” (Pl. check the agenda of these movements given elsewhere in
this book. KNCM had ‘swaraj’, but not ‘purna swaraj’, among its agenda.),
like repeal of some acts, reduction in taxes, introducing certain reforms,
saving extra-territorial Muslim caliphate in Turkey, and so on.
Even the “Quit India” call to the British in 1942 was driven by the false
judgement on the part of Gandhi that the British and the Allies were losing
WW-II. However, as soon as it became clear that the tide had turned in
favour of the British and the Allies, Gandhi changed his tune. However, the
British completely ignored even Gandhi’s highly watered-down demands..
NON-VIOLENCE NONSENSE OF “NO ALTERNATIVE”
Gandhi had said at different times: “This country must not be liberated
through bloodshed… If India makes violence her creed, and I have
survived, I would not care to live in India. She will cease to evoke any pride
in me. My patriotism is subservient to my religion.” By the way, which
religion says liberate your country, or throw off your slavery only through
non-violence? And, were there any examples in history of it, which that
religion had picked-up? Or, was Gandhi trying to impose a new,
irrationally-manufactured religion on India?
Revolutionary Bhagwati Charan Vohra (1904–1930) had remarked: “Let
nobody toy with nation's freedom which is her very life, by making
psychological experiments in non-violence and such other novelties...”
Aurobindo Ghosh had rightly stated: “Liberty is the life-breath of a
nation; and when the life is attacked, when it is sought to suppress all
chance of breathing by violent pressure, then any and every means of self-
preservation becomes right and justifiable—just as it is lawful for a man
who is being strangled, to rid himself of the pressure on his throat by any
means in his power. It is the nature of the pressure that determines the
nature of the resistance.”
A reasonable person would have said: “Liberate the country! How? It
doesn’t matter. Whichever is the most efficacious and fastest way.
Violence? No problem. If the enslavers can use violence to enslave us, why
the slaves can’t counter with violence? Non-violence? Fine, if it can yield
the result, and as fast, though there is nothing in the past to back it up. Mix
of violence, non-violence, constitutional methods, and revolution? Fine,
more methods, better co-ordinated, the better.”
However, diffident about the defensibility of the non-violent method
alone, many have concocted a rationale for non-violence, which is often
cited. Gandhian non-violent tactics have been defended on the specious
plea of “there being no alternative”. That is, the Gandhian non-violence is
defended not on the plea that Gandhi advanced as highly lofty, religious,
spiritual and just; but on its practicality. “We couldn’t have won against the
British through violence—they were too powerful. Non-violence was the
only practical solution!” Assume it was possible to win against the British
violently. Would violence have been justified and practical then?
Advancing the plea of practicality of non-violence demonstrated
ignorance of history and the facts as they obtained then. All freedom
movements all over the globe (except India, if one chooses to exclude it,
though it was not so) all through history have been violent. And, in all cases
the state, that is, the ruler one had to fight against to gain freedom from, had
been much stronger than those seeking freedom. How did they win? How
did the apparently weaker side overwhelm the stronger side?
If you want to give up without even trying to give a good fight, you
would always discover how the strength of the state is insurmountable, as
Gandhi and the Gandhians did to justify their meek, ineffective non-
violence.
The trick lies in identifying the weaknesses and the strengths of the
adversary, and in planning accordingly. Let’s look at the major weakness of
the British: A mere one lakh or thereabout British lorded over 30 crore
Indians. How? They effectively used Indians against Indians. Indians in the
British army, police and the bureaucracy controlled the crores outside. What
was the most effective way to turn the tables? Propaganda. Make a call to
the patriotism of the Indians in the British army, police, courts, and the
bureaucracy. Campaign through their family, neighbours, villagers or
people from their town and city, and bring pressure upon them. Put insiders
in key positions. Develop a spy network. Launch multiple types of freedom
movements: through constitutional methods; through non-violent, non-
cooperation methods, through violent revolutionary methods. Co-ordinate
all the types of movements, and co-ordinate with insiders in the army,
police, courts, and the bureaucracy. Had this been done, India would have
gained freedom by early 1920s.
Revolutionary Shachindranath Sanyal had argued with Gandhi in
February 1925 in his “A Revolutionary’s Defence” [words in square-
brackets are not part of the quote]: “…Non-violent non-co-operation
movement failed not because there was sporadic outburst of suppressed
feelings here and there but because the movement was lacking in a worthy
ideal. The ideal that you preached was not in keeping with Indian culture
and traditions. [Gandhi’s non-violence was more a mix of Tolstoy, and the
Christian adage of ‘turn the other cheek’. It had no conformity with
Hinduism or Ramayana or Gita.] It savoured of imitation… The non-
violence that India preaches is not non-violence for the sake of non-
violence, but non-violence for the good of humanity, and when this good
for humanity will demand violence and bloodshed, India will not hesitate to
shed blood just in the same way as a surgical operation necessitates the
shedding of blood. To an ideal Indian, violence or non-violence has the
same significance provided they ultimately do good to humanity.
‘Vinashaya cha dushkrita’ was not spoken in vain. [“Paritranaya sadhunam
vinashaya cha dushkritam; dharma sansthapanarthaya sambhavami yuge
yuge...” of Bhagvat Gita mean “For the upliftment of the good and virtuous;
for the destruction of evil; for the re-establishment of the natural law, I will
come, in every age.”] To my mind, therefore, the ideal that you gave to the
nation or the programme of action that you laid before it is neither
consistent with Indian culture nor practicable as a political programme…
Lastly, I would like to say something about the remarks you have made in
connection with the strength of the British Empire. You have said to the
revolutionaries: ‘Those whom you seek to depose are better armed and
infinitely better organised than you are.’ [In the Ramayana, Jataayu
constitutes a prime example of resisting evil, by every means, despite
knowing it was futile to fight. Said Jataayu to Ravana: “I am old, you are
young, armed with bow and arrows, are clothed in armour and mounted on
a chariot. Yet, you shall not succeed in taking away Vaidehi [Sita] while I
am alive.”] But is it not shameful that a handful of Englishmen are able to
rule India, not by the free consent of the Indian people but by the force of
the sword? And if the English can be well-armed and well-organized why
can the Indians be not better armed and better organized still... …what on
earth makes the Indians so helpless as to think that they can never be better
organized than their English masters? By what argument and logic of fact
can you disprove the possibilities in which the revolutionaries have
immense faith? And the spirit of non-violence that arises out of this sense of
helplessness and despair can never be the non-violence of the strong, the
nonviolence of the Indian rishis. This is tamas pure and simple?...”
{ 6 }
WHAT REALLY LED TO FREEDOM
WAS FREEDOM THANKS TO GANDHI & CONGRESS?
Was it Gandhi that made the British ‘Quit India’? Was it the Congress
that ultimately drove the invaders out into the sea? The prevalent myth is
that the Congress won the independence for India, and that Gandhi and
Nehru were its principal leaders.
Was that so? NO.
The last (and only!) Gandhian movement for full independence was the
Quit India Movement of 1942. Mind you the previous movements like the
Rowlatt Satyagraha, etc., or the two major once-in-a-decade Gandhian
movements—the ‘Khilafat & Non-cooperation Movement’ (KNCM) of
1920-22, and the ‘Salt Satyagraha’ of 1930 plus the Civil Disobedience
Movement of 1931-32 that followed it—did NOT have complete
independence in their agenda (Pl. check the agenda of these movements
given elsewhere in this book. KNCM had ‘swaraj’, but not ‘purna swaraj’,
among its agenda.) at all! Yes, the Congress and the Congress leaders did
talk of swaraj or dominion status or independence in their meeting,
resolutions, speeches, and writings, and did officially promulgate the ‘Purna
Swaraj Declaration’, or the ‘Declaration of the Independence of India’ at
Lahore (as late as) on 29 December 1929, followed by its pledge on 26
January 1930; BUT in none of their major movements until the Quit India
1942 did the Congress include ‘Purna Swaraj’ or full independence as an
item of agenda or as a demand on the British!
Recorded the noted historian Dr RC Majumdar: “Far from claiming any
credit for achievements of 1942 [Quit India], both Gandhi and the
Congress offered apology and explanation for the ‘madness’ which seized
the people participating in it.”—quoted by the author Anuj Dhar in his
tweet of 1 July 2018. Anuj Dhar also tweeted: “The claim that Quit India
led to freedom is a state sanctioned hoax.”
Quit India fizzled out in about two months. After Quit India, Gandhi did
not launch any movement. Is one to infer that the call to Quit India given in
1942 was acted upon by the British after a lapse of five years in 1947? That
there was some kind of an ultra-delayed tubelight response? Quit India call
heard after a delay of five years!
Britain hinted at independence in 1946, and announced it formally in
1947, even though there was hardly any pressure from the Congress on
Britain to do so. Many of the Rulers of the Princely States in fact wondered
and questioned the Raj as to why they wanted to leave (they didn’t want
them to—it was a question of their power and perks, which were safe under
the British) when there was no movement against them, and no demand or
pressure on them to leave.
The British initially announced the timeline as June 1948 to leave India.
Later, they themselves preponed it to August 1947. If the British didn’t
wish to leave, and it was the Congress which was making them leave, why
would the British voluntarily announce preponement of their departure?
The long and short of it is that Gandhi and Gandhism and the Gandhian
Congress were NOT really the reasons the British left. Gandhi himself
admitted as much.
WHAT THEY SAID
What Gandhi had himself said:
“I see it as clearly as I see my finger: British are leaving not because of
any strength on our part but because of historical conditions and for many
other reasons.”{Gill/24}
The “historical conditions and other reasons” were not of Gandhi’s
making, or that of the Congress—they were despite them.
In the context of the choice of the national flag in 1947 Gandhi had said:
“…But what is wrong with having the Union Jack in a corner of our flag? If
harm has been done to us by the British it has not been done by their flag
and we must also take note of the virtues of the British. They are voluntarily
withdrawing from India, leaving power in our hands. A drastic bill which
virtually liquidates the Empire did not take even a week to pass in
Parliament. Time was when even very unimportant bills took a year and
more to be passed... We are having Lord Mountbatten as our chief gate-
keeper. So long he has been the servant of the British king. Now he is to be
our servant. If while we employed him as our servant we also had the Union
Jack in a corner of our flag, there would be no betrayal of India in this.
…”{CWMG/Vol-96/86-87}
Admitted Gandhi, on different occasions during 1946-47: “Have I led
the country astray?... Is there something wrong with me, or are things really
going wrong… Truth and ahimsa, by which I swear and which have to my
knowledge sustained me for sixty years seem to fail… My own doctrine
was failing. I don’t want to be a failure but a successful man. But it may be
I die a failure…”{Gill/212}
He realised that his decades of work had come to an “inglorious end”.
An airy creed based on unreal, unscientific and irrational foundations that
ignored historical, economic, religious and imperialist forces, and either did
not recognise or grossly underestimated the forces it was up against, and the
nature of British interests, had to fail.
Gandhi had envisaged the British troops remaining in India after
independence for some time to train Indians. That is, Gandhi never
considered driving out the British as an option, in which case the British
would certainly not have obliged by remaining in India to train their
adversaries. Gandhi had remarked: “Having clipped our wings it is their
[British] duty to give us wings wherewith we can fly.”{Nan/314}
What the above implies is that Gandhi’s independence movement was a
friendly match where the adversary [the British], after withdrawing, was
expected to be sporting, and be generous to the other side.
S.S. Gill:
“It seems presumptuous to pick holes in Gandhi’s campaigns and
strategies, and appear to belittle a man of epic dimensions, especially when
the nationalist mythologies render it sacrilegious to re-evaluate his
achievements. Great men of action, who perform great deeds, do commit
great mistakes. And there is no harm in pointing these out. In one sense it is
a Gandhian duty, as he equated truth with God.”{Gill/75}
“It is generally believed that Gandhi’s greatest achievement was the
liberation of India from colonial rule. But historical evidence does not
support this view.”{Gill/24}
Dr BR Ambedkar:
“…The Quit India Campaign turned out to be a complete failure… It
was a mad venture and took the most diabolical form. It was a scorch-earth
campaign in which the victims of looting, arson and murder were Indians
and the perpetrators were Congressmen… Beaten, he [Gandhi] started a fast
for twenty-one days in March 1943 while he was in gaol with the object of
getting out of it. He failed. Thereafter he fell ill. As he was reported to be
sinking the British Government released him for fear that he might die on
their hand and bring them ignominy… On coming out of gaol, he [Gandhi]
found that he and the Congress had not only missed the bus but had also
lost the road. To retrieve the position and win for the Congress the respect
of the British Government as a premier party in the country which it had
lost by reason of the failure of the campaign that followed up the Quit India
Resolution, and the violence which accompanied it, he started negotiating
with the Viceroy… Thwarted in that attempt, Mr. Gandhi turned to Mr.
Jinnah…”{Amb3}
Nirad Chaudhuri:
“…After being proved to be dangerous ideologues by that [world] war,
the pacifists have now fallen back on Gandhi as their last prop, and are
arguing that by liberating India from the foreign rule by his non-violent
methods he has proved that non-violent methods and ideas are sound.
Unfortunately, the British abandonment of India before Gandhi’s death has
given a spurious and specious plausibility to what is in reality only a
coincidence without causal relationship… And finally, he [Gandhi] had no
practical achievement, as I shall show when I deal with his death. What is
attributed to him politically is pure myth…”{NC/41}
Patrick French:
“From late 1930s onwards, Gandhi was a liability to the freedom
movement, pursuing an eccentric agenda that created as many problems as
it solved. V.S. Naipaul has put it more bluntly, ‘Gandhi lived too
long.’”{PF/105}
VS Naipaul:
“Not everyone approved of Gandhi’s methods. Many were dismayed by
the apparently arbitrary dictates of his 'inner voice'. And in the political
stalemate of the 1930s—for which some Indians still blame him: Gandhi’s
unpredictable politics, they say, his inability to manage the forces he had
released, needlessly lengthened out the Independence struggle, delayed self-
government by twenty-five years, and wasted the lives and talents of many
good men…”{Na1}
FREEDOM: THE REAL REASONS
Till the early 1940s the British were well-ensconced in power, and
looked forward to comfortably sailing through for several more decades—
notwithstanding the Gandhian agitations of over two decades since 1918. If
they played politics between the Congress and the Muslim League it was
only to prolong their rule, and not to give independence or create Pakistan.
They never perceived the Gandhian non-violent methods as threats to their
rule. Then what changed that they left? Those major factors are detailed
below.
1) WW-II AND ITS CONSEQUENCES
UK’s Precarious Economy, and WW-II Exhaustion.
1.1) The UK was in a precarious economic condition as a consequence
of the Second World War. It was hugely debt-ridden, and the maintenance
of its colonies had become a tremendous drag on the UK exchequer. The
Britain had colonised India to loot, and not to invest in it or to maintain it.
The money flow had to be from India to Britain to justify continuance of
the colony; and not the other way round, which had begun to happen.
“The Empire was no longer turning a profit, or even paying its
way… The result was what the historian Correlli Barnett has called
‘one of the most outstanding examples of strategic over-extension in
history’.”{PF/197}
The famous UK economist John Maynard Keynes, who also happened
to be an economic advisor to the UK, presented the war cabinet in 1945
with a financial analysis that showed that running the British Empire had
cost 1,000 million pounds for each of the past two years, rising post-war to
1,400 million pounds per year; and that without the US financial assistance,
the UK would go bankrupt!{Tim}
The British exchequer was forced to freeze debt repayment. Britain
owed the largest amount to India in war debt: 1250 million pounds!{Chee/3}
{Wire1}
Contrast the above reverse money-drain to the following Indian loot that
was the reason for the establishment and prolongation of the Raj:
“… ‘twice in less than a century, India was conquered by the British
with Indian money’. First, India paid for the [East India] Company armies,
which campaign by campaign reached Delhi; and then the country was
burdened with the cost of suppressing the Mutiny—the latter was estimated
at Rs 40 crores [value then]. [That is, financing both to conquer India, and
then to re-establish and perpetuate the British rule upon Mutiny, was by
taxing, looting, and extracting money from India and Indians.] There was
also the constant drain of India’s wealth towards London; the Company was
earning £30,000,000 per year by the 1850s and remitting 11 back to
England. Under the rule of the Crown [after Mutiny, from 1958] it was
worse. By 1876-7 £13,500,000 was going to London out of annual revenues
of £56,000,000, or 24%. The impoverishment of villages took on an
extraordinary magnitude by the turn of the century…”{Akb/159-60}
1.2) By the end of the WW-II territorial colonisation had ceased to be a
viable enterprise, and decolonisation began. In fact, around the time India
got its independence, many other colonies (like Sri Lanka, Burma–
Myanmar, etc.) also got their independence, although there was not much of
an independence movement in those colonies that would have forced the
colonisers to leave. During 1947 Britain also pushed plans through the UN
that would enable it to leave Palestine; and finally Israel was created on 14
May 1948.
1.3) Viceroy Wavell had stated to King-Emperor George VI as early as
on 8 July 1946: “We are bound to fulfil our pledges to give India her
freedom as soon as possible—and we have neither the power nor, I think,
the will to remain in control of India for more than an extremely limited
period...We are in fact conducting a retreat, and in very difficult
circumstances…”{Pani2/v}
1.4) Militarily, administratively, financially, and above all, mentally the
British were too exhausted after the Second World War to continue with
their colonies.
2) NETAJI BOSE, INA AND ARMY MUTINIES
2.1) The military onslaught of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and his INA
hugely shook the British, and the Indian army.
2.2) The Viceroy was shocked to learn of thousands of soldiers of the
British-Indian army switching over to INA (to support the enemy nation
Japan) after the fall of Singapore in 1942. It meant the Indian soldiers in the
British-Indian army could no longer be relied upon. What was more—there
was a huge support for Netaji Bose and the INA among the common public
in India.
Wrote Maulana Azad in his autobiography: “After the surrender of
Japan, the British reoccupied Burma and many officers of the Indian
National Army (INA) were taken prisoner. They did not repent their action
in having joined the Indian National Army and some of them were now
facing trial for treason. All these developments convinced the British that
they could no longer rely on the armed forces…”{Azad/142}
2.3) The INA Red Fort trials of 1945-46 mobilised public opinion
against the British on an unprecedented scale, so much so that the Congress
leaders like Nehru (who had till then, and later too, opposed Netaji and
INA) had to demonstratively pretend their support to the INA under-trials to
get votes in the 1946 general elections.
2.4) The Indian Naval Mutiny of 1946 and the Jabalpur Army Mutiny of
1946, both provoked partially by the INA trials, convinced the British that
they could no longer trust the Indian Army to suppress Indians, and
continue to rule over them.
2.5) In the context of the Indian colony, Sir Stafford Cripps stated in the
British Parliament on 5 March 1947 that Britain had only two alternatives:
either to (1)transfer power to Indians, or (2)considerably reinforce British
troops in India to retain hold. The latter (option-2), he judged as impossible!
{Gill/24}
2.6) Comments Narendra Singh Sarila: “In South-east Asia, Bose
blossomed, and,...played an important role in demoralizing the British
military establishment in India. Indeed, it is a toss-up whether Gandhiji’s or
Bose’s influence during the period 1945-46—even after Bose’s death—
played a more important role in destabilizing British rule in India.”{Sar/125}
2.7) Wrote MKK Nayar: “The reason why Britain unilaterally granted
freedom even before Congress had intensified its agitation was on account
of Netaji’s greatness. Army jawans who had never dared to utter a word
against the British had united as one to declare that INA’s soldiers were
patriots. Men of the Navy fearlessly pointed guns at British ships and
establishments and opened fire. It was the same soldiers who had for a
hundred years obeyed orders like slaves, even to massacre unhesitatingly at
the notorious Jallianwala Bagh. They had now united to express their
opinion and Naval men had shown their readiness to raise the flag of revolt.
Attlee and others probably realized that Indian soldiers may no longer be
available to hunt Indians. This may have prompted them to leave with
dignity and self-respect.”{MKN}
2.8) Stated Dr BR Ambedkar: “…The national army [INA] that was
raised by Subhas Chandra Bose. The British had been ruling the country in
the firm belief that whatever may happen in the country or whatever the
politicians do, they will never be able to change the loyalty of soldiers. That
was one prop on which they were carrying on the administration. And that
was completely dashed to pieces [by Bose and INA]. They found that
soldiers could be seduced to form a party - a battalion to blow off the
British. I think the British had come to the conclusion that if they were to
rule India, the only basis on which they would rule was the maintenance of
the British Army.”{Amb}
2.9)The British historian Michael Edwardes wrote: “It slowly dawned
upon the government of India that the backbone of the British rule, the
Indian Army, might now no longer be trustworthy. The ghost of Subhas
Bose, like Hamlet's father, walked the battlements of the Red Fort (where
the INA soldiers were being tried), and his suddenly amplified figure
overawed the conference that was to lead to Independence.”{ME/93}
2.10) Chief Justice PB Chakrabarty of Calcutta High Court, who had
also served as the acting Governor of West Bengal in India after
independence, wrote in his letter addressed to the publisher of
Dr RC Majumdar's book ‘A History of Bengal’{IT1}:
“You have fulfilled a noble task by persuading Dr. Majumdar to
write this history of Bengal and publishing it ...In the preface of the
book Dr Majumdar has written that he could not accept the thesis
that Indian independence was brought about solely, or
predominantly by the non-violent civil disobedience movement of
Gandhi. When I was the acting Governor, Lord Atlee, who had
given us independence by withdrawing the British rule from India,
spent two days in the Governor's palace at Calcutta during his tour
of India. At that time I had a prolonged discussion with him
regarding the real factors that had led the British to quit India. My
direct question to him was that since Gandhi's ‘Quit India’
movement had tapered off quite some time ago and in 1947 no such
new compelling situation had arisen that would necessitate a hasty
British departure, why did they have to leave?
“In his reply Atlee cited several reasons, the principal among
them being the erosion of loyalty to the British Crown among the
Indian army and navy personnel as a result of the military activities
of Netaji [Subhas Bose]. Toward the end of our discussion I asked
Atlee what was the extent of Gandhi's influence upon the British
decision to quit India. Hearing this question, Atlee's lips became
twisted in a sarcastic smile as he slowly chewed out the word, ‘m-i-
n-i-m-a-l!’”{Gla/159} {Stat1}
The Chief Justice also wrote: “Apart from revisionist historians, it was
none other than Lord Clement Atlee himself, the British Prime Minster
responsible for conceding independence to India, who gave a shattering
blow to the myth sought to be perpetuated by court historians, that Gandhi
and his movement had led the country to freedom.”
2.11) Basically, the British decided to leave because they were fast
losing control on account of the various factors detailed above; and lacked
the financial resources, the military clout (thanks to Bose, the INA, the
Mutinies, and the anti-British atmosphere they created), and, above all, the
will to regain that control.
3) PRESSURE FROM THE US
The Cripps Mission of March-April 1942, the first one in the direction
of freedom for India, was under the pressure from the US. The US felt that
the best way to secure India from Japan was to grant it freedom, and obtain
its support in the war.
US President Roosevelt had constantly pressurised Britain on India, and
had specially deputed Colonel Louis Johnson to India as his personal
representative to lobby for the Indian freedom.{Sar/104}
Infuriated at President Roosevelt’s sympathy for the nationalists
[Indians], Churchill dismissed Congress as merely “the intelligentsia of
non-fighting Hindu elements, who can neither defend India nor raise a
revolt.”{MM/218}
The US kept up the pressure. The US wanted Britain to settle the Indian
issue so that India could provide whole-hearted support in WW-II.
Although the war in Europe was almost over by April 1945 (Hitler
committed suicide on April 30), not so the war in Asia—a large area was
still occupied by Japan. Japan unconditionally surrendered only on 14
August 1945, after the dropping of atomic bombs on 6 and 9 August on
Hiroshima and Nagasaki respectively. Shimla Conference was called on 25
June 1945 by Viceroy Wavell for Indian self-government again under
pressure from Americans to get full Indian support to dislodge Japan from
its occupied territories of Burma, Singapore and Indonesia.
The Japanese surrender following the dropping of atom-bombs
dramatically enhanced the US military clout. The US thereafter insisted that
the Atlantic Charter be also made applicable to the European colonies in
Asia (it was, after all, a question of grabbing markets for the US capitalists),
and they all be freed.
Thanks to the war, Britain had almost gone bankrupt, and was
dependent on massive American aid. It could not therefore ignore or
withstand the US pressure. Clement Attlee himself acknowledged in his
autobiography that it was difficult for Britain to keep sticking on to the
Indian colony given the constant American pressure against the British
Empire.
Writes Maria Misra: “…the crisis ridden British economy and,
especially perhaps, American pressure to decolonize, simply could not be
ignored. As [Viceroy] Wavell himself confided to his diary, while Churchill,
Bevin and Co. ‘hate the idea of our leaving India but… [they have] no
alternative to suggest.”{MM/232}
Writes Patrick French: “[By 1946] Demobilization [of armed forces]
was almost complete, and there was no political will on either side of the
House of Commons for stopping this process and reinforcing India with the
necessary five divisions. Indeed, it would not have been possible without
US funding, which would never have been forthcoming.”{PF/289}
Wrote Maulana Azad: “I have already referred to the pressure which
President Roosevelt was putting on the British Government for a settlement
of the Indian question. After Pearl Harbour, American public opinion
became more and more insistent and demanded that India’s voluntary
cooperation in the war effort must be secured [by giving it freedom].”{Azad/47}
The fact of American help and pressure in getting independence for
India is not adequately acknowledged by India.
Apart from the US, the Chinese Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, part of
the Allies in WW-II, had also throughout pressed the British Government to
recognise India’s independence to enable it to render all help it was capable
of.{Azad/41}
The Chicago Tribune in its valedictory tribute to Churchill had
mentioned that “we [the US] have no interest in maintaining [or allowing
the UK to maintain] her oppressive empire.”{PC/366}
4) GANDHI & THE CONGRESS?
Gandhi and the Congress were among the minor reasons and non-
decisive factors the British left. Strangely, and quite unjustifiably, the focus
is on Gandhi, Nehru and the Congress on each anniversary of the
Independence Day of India.
5) THE BRITISH SOUGHT FREEDOM FROM INDIA!?
It may sound ironic but by 1946–47 it was actually Britain which sought
freedom from India!
As Patrick French puts it: “The role given to him [Mountbatten] by
Attlee’s government was to be the lubricant of imperial withdrawal; nothing
more. His task was to give Britain—a harassed, war-torn, penniless little
island—freedom from its Indian Empire, which had turned from a valuable
asset into a frightening burden.”{PF/289}
* * * * *
BIBLIOGRAPHY
A Note on Citations
Citations are given as super-scripts in the text, such as {Azad/128}.
Citation Syntax & Examples
{Source-Abbreviation/Page-Number}
e.g. {Azad/128} = Azad, Page 128
{Source-Abbreviation/Volume-Number/Page-Number}
e.g. {CWMG/V-58/221} = CWMG, Volume-58, Page 221
{Source-Abbreviation} … for URLs (articles on the web), and for digital
books (including Kindle-Books), that are searchable, where location or page-
number may not be given.
e.g. {VPM2}, {URL15}
{Source-Abbreviation/Location-Number}… for Kindle Books
e.g. {VPM2}, {VPM2/L-2901}
Bibliography
Column Contains
C1 Abbreviations used in citations.
C2 B=Book, D=Digital Book/eBook on the Website other than Kindle, K=Kindle eBook,
U=URL of Document/Article on Web, W=Website, Y=YouTube
C3 Book/Document/Web URL Particulars
C1 C2 C3
AB U Article ‘Malabar’s Agony’ by Dr (Mrs) Annie Beasant dated 29-Nov-1921.
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